


Robo-Cook.

by steeleye



Series: After The First Won. [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Under Siege (1992)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/F, Humour, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22449445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: The Terran Alliance had a zero tolerance policy towards pirates; but these days pirates weren't just tossed out of air-locks. No, in these more enlightened times a pirate could expect to get a fair trial...before being tossed out of the air-lock.
Series: After The First Won. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556119
Comments: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Robo-Cook.

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or 'Under Siege'. I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** Inspired by the action adventure movie, 'Under Siege'.

 **Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English (the original and best) which is different to US-English.

 **Timeline:** This story takes place after the events described in 'Aliens From The Id'.

 **Words:** Eight chapters of 3000+ words.

 **Warnings:** Never look for a gas leak with a naked flame

 **Summary:** The Terran Alliance had a zero tolerance policy towards pirates; but these days pirates weren't just tossed out of air-locks. No, in these more enlightened times a pirate could expect to get a fair trial...before being tossed out of the air-lock.

0=0=0=0

**Previously.**

Everything that Buffy and her friends had tried to do to stop The First had been futile. The First had won; but it was only after humanity had weakened itself in fruitless internecine wars that The First unleashed his demonic hordes. Even then things hadn't gone completely the First's way. Humanity fought back and amongst the people that fought back were the recently called slayers and the other survivors of the Battle of Sunnydale. It was only when 'The Plague' swept across the world either killing or reducing the male part of the population to mindless animals did the First finally win; but even in victory the First actually lost. As soon as it looked like his armies were going to sweep humanity from the face of existence they started to fight amongst themselves over the spoils of war. 

As the demonic wars raged, the First slowly lost his grip on all the lands and peoples he'd conquered and enslaved and it was at this point the world finally descended into chaos. Even The First couldn't control the chaos which lasted for well over a hundred years. Eventually the remnants of the human race rose up out of the ashes and began to throw off the First's control. It would take centuries, but humanity would once again arise out of the death and destruction of The First's Wars.

0=0=0=0

Faith had stepped out of the elevator in the Wolfram and Hart building to find herself in a future world inhabited almost entirely by women. Lost and confused she'd later that day found herself standing in front of the 'Alliance Building' in a rebuilt suburb of Los Angeles. Walking into the building she'd found the recruiting office for the Terran Alliance Armed Forces. In this future people knew and loved slayers, the armed forces in-particular wanted as many slayers in its ranks as were willing to join, so, Faith enlisted in Star Force, the Terran Alliance space ‘navy’. Not having had very much success on Earth, she'd wanted to see how she'd fare on the 'Final Frontier', as it happened she did pretty well.

0=0=0=0

Willow had died in 2004, gunned down by the First's agents as she'd tried to escape from her and Kennedy's house in the Hamptons. But it seemed the universe had a big surprise (or practical joke, it depended on your outlook) waiting for her in the future. Waking up she found herself training to be a science officer in the Terran Star Force. Six years later she was assigned the post of ship's Science Officer aboard the Light Cruiser, Reluctant where she met Faith who was by now a veteran Chief Petty Officer.

It was at this point both their lives became very 'interesting'.

0=0=0=0

**The bridge of the Terran Alliance Star Ship Reluctant, 3515CE.**

“Vampire! Vampire!” Faith called out as her fingers flew across her 'battle board' and her eyes flicked from one read-out to another, “I have five...correction six inbound missiles at extreme sensor range, on attack vector green three six mark four five.”

“Sound battle-stations, Miz Lehane,” Willow ordered from the Captain's chair as a small part of her mind wondered why incoming missiles were called 'vampires', “Bring all weapons and counter measures on line.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Faith replied as the alarms went off around the ship and crew women rushed to their battle-stations, “missiles closing rapidly to optimum attack range.”

“Configure launcher 'Anna' for an anti-shipping strike and launcher 'Betty' for anti-missile defence,” Willow couldn't help but feel excited as she gave Chief of the Ship Lehane her orders, “helm...” Willow shifted her gaze to the helms-woman who sat at her station just below and in front of her, “...commence evasive manoeuvres, pattern delta.”

“Aye, aye, Ma'am!” replied the helm operator crisply, “Evasive manoeuvres, pattern delta, aye.”

“Missiles still closing...” Faith called out, “...I now have a second strike at red nine eight mark zero seven, six missiles closing rapidly. Tactical shows all inbound missiles are anti-shipping missiles...Strike Alpha now within effective range, Strike Bravo will be in effective range in ten seconds.”

“Launch six anti-shipping missiles at each strike on a reciprocal course, set missiles in 'hunt' mood,” Willow ordered, “fire two anti-missile missiles at each inbound strike.”

'Hunt mood' meant that the missiles would act very much like a wolf pack with each missile sending back targeting information to its sisters. Firing missiles down the reciprocal course of the incoming missiles would hopefully allow the Reluctant to attack and destroy the hostile vessel or vessels that had launched the inbound missiles.

“Aye, aye...” Faith repeated her orders back to Willow as she prepared the missiles for launch, “...missiles away!” watching her readouts closely, Faith saw that all her missiles had launched successfully and were on course for their targets, “All missiles launched and running true.”

“Helm,” Willow leaned forward eagerly in her seat as she watched the missiles accelerate away from the Reluctant in the big holographic 'tank' in the centre of the bridge, “evasive manoeuvre pattern 'Chloe', now.”

The helms woman's fingers danced over her controls sending the Reluctant bouncing wildly all over space and making her a very difficult target to hit or lock on to. Luckily for the crew, the Reluctant's inertial dampeners prevented them from being thrown around inside the craft and reduced to strawberry coloured mush against the bulkheads. 

“Launch counter measures,” 'Captain' Willow ordered; electronic packages designed to mimic the radiations given off by the Reluctant were fired into space, suddenly instead of having only one quarry to aim at the incoming missiles now had a multitude of targets.

Hundreds of miles away from the Reluctant her anti-missile missiles exploded, their warheads scattering thousands of quarter inch diameter shrapnel balls into the paths of the incoming missiles.

“Three missile from Strike Alpha destroyed...” Faith reported before checking to see what effect the missiles sent against Strike Bravo were having, “...four missiles eliminated from Strike Bravo.”

“Engage the survivors with the secondary armament when they come within range, Miz Lehane,” Willow commanded feeling justifiably proud of herself for so easily thwarting the enemy missile attack.

“Ma'am,” Faith called to attract Willow's attention, “the telemetry I'm receiving from our anti-ship missiles shows no hostile craft at the assumptive launch points.”

“What!?” Willow swung her chair so it was facing her weapons officer.

Out on the hull the Reluctant's four, thirty millimetre Gatling guns, which were her secondary armament, first tracked and then fired at the surviving attacking missiles. Each weapon fired a burst of four thousand rounds which exploded into hundreds of pieces of shrapnel when each shell's proximity fuse came close to the incoming missiles. The attacking missiles flew into a 'wall' of metal and were ripped apart or exploded their warheads; at the speeds the missiles and the shrapnel were moving it didn't really mater if a target was hit my a nuclear warhead or a grape, the effect was the about the same.

“All incoming missiles destroyed,” Faith reported, “still no sign of the firing vessel.”

“Damn-it,” Willow punched the arm of her command chair in frustration before remembering something, “helm, secure from evasive manoeuvres and bring us back onto our original course...”

“Erm, Captain,” Faith began, “do ya think that's such a good...”

Before Faith could finish what she was about to say every alarm on the Reluctant's bridge burst into deafening life.

“What the feck...” Faith gasped as her sensors told her something that was blatantly impossible.

“What's going on!?” Willow wailed as the Reluctant was rocked by internal explosions.

“Something just appear about half a mile 'above' us...” Faith held on grimly to her battle board as the ship careened violently from side to side as smoke and sparks exploded from the control panels.

“Shoot at it!” Willow ordered in desperation, “Helm...get us outta here!”

“Aye...!” there was a loud bang and the helms-woman slumped over her controls, dead; Willow jumped from her seat and pulled the dead crew woman out of the way and took over her position.

“Laying in evasive pattern Foxtrot,” Willow informed Faith, “Open fire...ALL WEAPONS!” she yelled, “Lets make sure history never forgets the name...”

“...Reluctant?” Faith smirked when it seemed that Willow had forgotten the ship's name.

“Damn-it Faith,” Willow cried as smoke and flame filled the bridge and crewers died all around her, “I was trying to be dramatic, now you've spoiled it.”

“You were trying to be Captain Picard, is what you were doing,” Faith sniggered as her battle board blew up.

“Exercise ends,” came the cool, calm voice of Tara, the ship's AI, “Well done Lieutenant Rosenberg you have led the Reluctant to her total destruction.” Tara sounded more than a little 'miffed', the destruction of the Reluctant meant 'she' would be 'dead' too, “A full report of how you screwed up will be downloaded to your personnel computer for you to study and hopefully learn from...”

As the AI spoke the holographic crew-women around the bridge disappeared as did the simulated battle damage.

“Hey,” Faith called from her station as she checked that all the ship's systems were now out of 'simulated combat mode' and were working normally, “that's enough of that Tara, I think the L-t did good considering she's a science officer an' not a combat officer.”

Tara's silence on the subject spoke volumes.

“I swear she gets more human every day,” Willow whispered as she walked over to her science station which was situated right next to Faith's, “do you really think I did okay...apart from getting us blown up an' totally killed?”

“I've seen a lot worse, L-t,” Faith replied with a grin, “in fact I think you were doing too good...which is why Tara threw something weird at us!” Faith said pointedly, the AI remained silent, “Now she's sulking.”

“Am not,” Tara replied sounding for all the world like a petulant teen.

“Are too,” Willow replied, but was interrupted by the hatch to the bridge opening to admit Leading Crew Woman, Buffy Summers, ship's cook.

“Hi guys...” Buffy called happily as she stepped onto the bridge before freezing for a moment, “Darn-it,” she frowned, “I've done it again haven't I? I called you 'guys' which is like totally of the bad in so many ways.”

“Look Buffy,” Willow tried to explain for what felt like the millionth time, “calling someone a 'guy' is like a major insult in the here-an'-now...”

“An' I should put ya on report for not using proper military protocol,” Faith pointed out, “but I'm not going to...this time.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant Rosenberg, Chief Lehane,” Buffy looked so much like a sad kitten that it was hard to stay cross with her for long.

“I'm going to have check her programming out again,” Willow whispered to Faith.

The Buffy that stood looking so sad on the bridge of the Reluctant and clutching a tray with two steaming mugs on it, wasn't the real Buffy Summers. The real Buffy Summers had died (as far as anyone could work out) more than a fifteen-hundred years ago. She'd died when Sunnydale collapsed into the Hellmouth and The First had won the 'First and Last Battle'. The Buffy that stood before Willow and Faith was in fact an ex-sex-bot that looked almost exactly like the original Buffy Summers (her nose was slightly different, some would even say 'cuter'). Having been designed and built by a mad scientist for her own perverted pleasures, Willow, had killed the mad scientist, Dr Morbius, who she then found out was also a robot; Willow had then taken the damaged Buffy-bot back to the Reluctant and repaired and reprogrammed her. This heavily upgraded Buffy-bot now didn't know she was a robot and thought she was the 'real' Buffy Summers who'd been magically transported forward in time just like her two friends.

“So what ya got there, Cookie?” Faith asked and gestured to the tray in Buffy's hand; having lost their previous ship's cook to an attack by an alien monster, Willow had programmed Buffy to fill the vacant ship's cook slot.

“Oh, yeah,” Buffy came back from where her subroutines had been doing a self diagnostic, “I thought you might like a hot drink before watch change.”

It was in fact ship's night and Willow, Faith and Buffy were the only 'people' awake aboard the Reluctant which was why Faith had been running Willow through a combat simulation.

“Here,” Buffy walked over to Willow and handed her one of the mugs, “Irish hot chocolate for Lieutenant Rosenberg,” the glitch in Buffy's programming which had made her make her earlier mistake appeared to have self-corrected, “and Irish coffee for Cots Lehane.”

“Thanks, 'B',” Faith smiled as she accepted the drink off Buffy; although she didn't like to admit it, it was fun being able to 'boss' Buffy about...even if she wasn't the real Buffy and she didn't really boss her any more than any other crew-woman aboard the Reluctant.

“Irish hot chocolate?” Willow asked suspiciously as she took hold of her mug.

“Yeah, its got Irish whiskey in it...” Buffy saw the look of horror on Willow's face and quickly explained, “...its non-alcoholic I synthesised it myself with the food processors.”

“Oh, that's okay then,” Willow took an experimental sip, “hey...” she smiled, “...that's not half bad...considering the whiskey comes from the food processors.”

The food processors were capable of making almost any foodstuff from the 'Sludge' stored in the Reluctant's Sludge Tanks. Unfortunately the 'sludge' was made up from waste from the Reluctant itself and any other matter it was able to collect on its travels. The processors worked by rearranging matter on a molecular level, although the processed food was supposed to be indistinguishable from the naturally grown food carried in the ship's freezers, there was always the knowledge of what the sludge was originally made from. 

“Good, I'm glad you like it,” Buffy's habitual smile slowly turned into a frown, “How come you gu...” she had almost used the word 'guys' again, but managed to stop herself, “...grrrs...girls are so much older than me, I mean we used to all be about the same age.”

“We're not that much older than you,” Willow replied defensively; the truth was that Willow was now in her late twenties and Faith was in her early thirties while Buffy looked about nineteen or twenty.

“We've been here longer than you,” Faith explained, “its all this time travel crap.”

“But I disappeared way before either than you g...girls,” once again Buffy caught herself before saying 'guys', “the way I remember it I 'died' under Sunnydale an' you two totally got sucked into the future ages after I did.”

“Like I say,” Faith shrugged, “time travel, its weird.”

Willow had come up with the, 'time travel its weird' explanation to explain why Buffy looked younger than either Faith or herself; she'd also had to play about with the past to explain why Buffy looked nineteen. Another problem that Willow was going to have to deal with and come up with an answer to, was why Buffy would continue to look nineteen. Dr Morbius had built Buffy more than twenty years ago and she'd not changed in appearance in all that time. When the time came and Buffy noticed she wasn't growing any older, Willow would have to alter her programming to explain everything, she'd probably go with the, 'it's magic' explanation, which was really no explanation at all. Sometimes Willow thought that rebuilding the Buffy-bot had been more trouble than it was worth, but then she'd look at Buffy and think that the robot was in some small way a monument to her long dead friend.

“Remember we talked about this,” Willow said; the truth was that she'd put the memory of them talking about the effects of time travel into Buffy's programming.

“Yeah I know,” Buffy sighed, “but how come I'm totally not an officer or a Chief like Faith an' why did I join the navy...”

“Star Force,” Faith corrected.

“...whatever,” Buffy sighed again cooling her internal workings as she did so, “how come I'm just a Leading Crew Woman an' a cook...I mean I'm totally good at being a cook, right?”

“The best,” Faith acknowledged, “an' ya part of my security team.”

“Which is like cool, but...” Buffy's voice faded away just before Willow spoke again.

“Its coz you're too young,” Willow explained, “even if you were an officer you'd only be a 'Cadet' or an Ensign and that's way worse than being a LCW.”

“Yeah,” Faith smirked, “Ensigns...lowest form of life in the galaxy, lower even than sludge bacteria. Look Buffy,” Faith smiled, “you stick at it an' one day you'll be Chief on some battle-wagon cooking for some way important admiral or something.” 

“Yeah,” Buffy admitted, “you're right...but I still think it would have been fun to be an officer.”

“Hey Buff,” Willow smiled, “no way is being an officer 'fun'...and talking about admirals aren't you going to help out at Admiral Arikawa's birthday party?”

“Yeah,” Buffy brightened at the prospect of using her 'wicked cool' culinary skills for an important function like the Admiral's birthday party.

Contrary to what the bridge 'tank' had shown during their little combat simulation, the Reluctant wasn't in deep space, she was in fact docked with a space station which was in orbit around VG-4501-9, better known as, Alor, a barren lump of rock orbiting a red giant some fifty light years away from Sol System. 

“Hadn't you better go get ready?” Faith hinted and nodded towards the ship's chronometer.

“Yeah!” Buffy replied as she glanced at the clock before heading towards the hatch, “Don't wanna be late...”

Willow and Faith watched as Buffy disappeared out the hatch and it sealed behind her, when she was sure Buffy was out of earshot, Faith turned to look at Willow.

“Ya know she still doesn't sound like the Buffy I remember.”

“I know,” Willow shook her head sadly, “I've tried tweaking her systems but her voice and syntax never comes out quite right.”

“Best to leave her as she is then,” Faith replied as she started to close down her battle board.

“That was my idea too,” Willow shrugged as she collected up Faith's and her own mugs before putting them in the bridge's replicator and pressing 'reclaim', “you could spend a life time trying to get it right and not quite managing it.”

“Hey,” Faith looked up from what she was doing, “I just had a thought...”

“Now there's a first!” Willow joked only to have Faith scowl at her, “Sorry,” she ducked her head, “what was this 'thought'.”

“Sex,” Faith replied simply.

“Erm, no thanks,” Willow frowned, “like no offence, but you're not my type and aren't you married?”

“No not you an' me, what about Buffy?”

“She's a machine, I could never...” Willow started to explain, “...and I never thought of Buffy in 'that way'.”

“No,” Faith shook her head, “look, Buffy's cute, ya gotta admit that...”

“Yeah okay she's cute, so what...” realisation dawned on Willow like a nuclear bomb going off in her head, “...Oh! You mean what if someone who doesn't know she's a machine falls for her.”

“I know her AI's good,” Faith turned so she was looking directly into Willow's eyes, “but can she feel emotion?”

“I know she can mimic emotions,” Willow replied slowly, “but real emotion, I'm not so sure.”

“An' what about sex?”

“Typical Faith, its all about the kissing an' sucking an' rubbing an' holding an' climaxing an' I really need to find a girlfriend...” Willow sighed sadly, “...she was originally a sex-bot so...”

“Okay, yeah she could do all the like 'mechanics', but...” Faith searched for the right words, “...but does she get any satisfaction from doing it? I mean Morbius was pretty much all about herself. I doubt she cared whether her sex-bot got anything outta all the screwing.”

“Feck!” Willow sighed heavily, “I never thought of that, next time I get a chance I'll run a diagnostic on her an' see what's the what...I mean, not being able to enjoy sex or a romantic relationship, that would be too cruel.”

0=0=0=0

Terran Alliance Star Force Enlisted Ranks with (British) Marine/Army Equivalents.

E7: Chief Petty Officer 1 (CPO1).................................Warrant Officer Class One (WO1).  
E6: Chief Petty Officer 2 (CPO2).................................Warrant Officer Class Two (WO2).  
E5: Petty Officer 1 (PO1)..............................................Staff Sergeant (S/Sgt).  
E4: Petty Officer 2 (PO2)..............................................Sergeant (Sgt).  
E3: Leading Crew Woman (LCW)................................Corporal (Cpl).  
E2: Able Crew Woman (ACW)......................................Lance Corporal (L/Cpl).  
E1: Crew Woman (CW).................................................Marine/Private (Mne/Pvt).

Terran Alliance Star Force Commissioned Ranks with Marine/Army Equivalents.

O7: Admiral (Adm)..............................................................General (Gen).   
O6: Captain (Cpt).................................................................Colonel (Col).  
O5: Commander (Cdr)..........................................................Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col).  
O4: Lt Commander (LtCdr..............................................….Major (Maj).  
O3: Lieutenant (Lt)...............................................................Captain (Capt).  
O2: Sub Lieutenant (S/Lt)....................................................First Lieutenant (1st Lt).  
O1: Ensign (En)....................................................................Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt).

Terran Alliance Star Ship Reluctant, C-57D. 

Lt/Cmd Jane (Jay-Jay) J Adams (Ship's Captain).  
Lt Willow Rosenberg (Science Officer).  
Lt Emma 'Doc' Ostrow (Ships Doctor).  
Lt Jerri Farwoman (First Officer).  
Ensign Dollie Mountshaft (Second Officer).  
Chief Petty Officer 1: Faith Lehane (Ship's Slayer/Gunnery Officer/Chief of the Ship).  
Chief Petty Officer 2: Julie Belle (FTL Drives).  
Petty Officer 2: Lorna Grey (Sensors/ECM).  
Petty Officer 2: Marie Youngerford (Communications)  
Petty Officer 2: Buffy Summers (Cook).  
Leading Crew Woman: Savanna Strong (Environment)  
Leading Crew Woman: Ellie Randall (Engineering).  
Able Crew Woman: Alison Lindstrom.   
Able Crew Woman: Alitza Bhatnagar.  
Crew Woman: Stephany Moran.   
Crew Woman: Mikayla Nichols.   
Crew Woman: 'Long' Joan Silver.   
Crew Woman: Carolyn O'Shea.   
Crew Woman: Susan Schick.  
Crew Woman: Barbara Good.  
Crew Woman: Moyra Fraser.   
Crew Woman: Stasya Ostrovsky. 

Marines.  
L/Cpl, Yurika Himesaki.  
Marine, Chiharu Misaki.   
Marine, Kana Anzai.   
Marine, Shizuku Mano.


	2. Chapter 2

After leaving Faith and Willow on the bridge, Buffy paused for a moment to make sure the hatch was securely closed behind her before heading off towards the galley. As she walked down through the ship a small part of her mind asked why the kitchen on a ship was called a galley? Surely they'd told her why at cook's school, but she couldn't remember if they had or not. Perhaps it'd been the 'bump on her head' that Willow had told her about that had made her forget. This thought made her frown; if she'd forgotten why a kitchen was called a galley, what else had she forgotten? Searching her memories she couldn't find any holes.

Buffy remembered the fight under Sunnydale High, she remembered the Ubervamps pouring out of the Hellmouth in an unstoppable horde. She remembered how Faith and all her friends had tried to keep them from gaining access to the surface and how they'd failed. Finally she remembered being dragged down by a swarm of Ubervamps and then the world turning to pain and blackness as they bit into her body and drank her blood. It'd only felt like a few seconds had passed before she woke up in a cheep motel room. One moment she'd been fighting a losing battle for her very life and the next she was in the shower wondering where the soap had gone. 

“Where’s the soap?” she’d asked herself.

“Yes it does...” came the surreal reply out of thin air moments before she switched off the water.

Slowly as she'd explored this strange new world, Buffy realised she was a long, long way from Sunnydale in both time and space. In time she was well over a thousand years adrift, in distance she was somewhere near a much smaller and very unfamiliar New York City; it was very much smaller than the city she remembered seeing on TV shows and, if her memory served her correctly, it was also in the wrong place.

After a few days spent exploring her new home, Buffy had it driven home to her that she wasn't in Sunnydale (or even in Kansas, unless Kansas had changed dramatically in the last year or so) any more and she didn't even have a small dog, a cowardly lion, or a straw man and a robot to keep her company; what was more she didn't have any ruby slippers to take her home again. Worse even, she was running out of money. It appeared to be just her luck to be transported to one of those futures where you still needed cash. However, luckily for her this future still had a need for waitresses and there appeared to be a shortage. Not finding any openings for slayers, Buffy got a job at a road side diner...and 'yes' there were still roads and trucks but both were bigger in the here and now than they'd been in her own time. Apart from high speed passenger monorails, railroads seemed to be a thing from the past.

Her job at the diner was well paid (as far as waitressing jobs went) and no one pinched her butt as she walked by, although she did get appreciative glances from the female truckers that stopped at the diner to eat. The fact that there were no men in this future had come as a big shock to her; of course there were some men but they were kept safely locked up somewhere. If a woman wanted to get pregnant (which most did at least once in their lives) they went to a 'Fertility Clinic' and got impregnated there. To be honest Buffy didn't think she'd be visiting a clinic any time soon, but she did find herself getting more and more _interested_ in one or two of the truckers who were regulars at the diner. She'd been on the point of accepting an invitation to go out with one of them (a young woman who looked a little like Faith) when three off duty Star Force girls came in one evening for snacks and coffee.

Talking to these young women as she served them made Buffy realise she was missing out on life. If she wasn't careful, she told herself, she'd spend the rest of her life at the diner, or she'd marry someone and end up having loads babies. But, she was a slayer, she had an urge to _do_ something where she could use her skills and Star Force appeared to be the answer to her unspoken prayers. Before the week was out she'd caught the monorail to New York City and marched into the Alliance Building and enlisted in Star Force. How she'd ended up as a cook wasn't so clear, particularly as she was a slayer and the Alliance armed forces welcomed all slayers with open arms. Being a slayer put you on the fast track to promotion (or death, it depended on how good a slayer you were), but some how Buffy had ended up at cook's school. There'd probably been a snafu with her paperwork, she told herself. However, now she was part of Cots' Lehane's security force her slayer skills weren't completely wasted and she did make one 'mean' cook.

Of course everything Buffy 'remembered' was a lie, apart from dying under Sunnydale. Her life was nothing but a lie, a story, made up by Willow Rosenberg who'd wanted her best friend back. Of course Willow told herself she'd done it all for the best of reasons. But she still secretly dreaded the day when or if the Buffy-bot discovered the truth.

Blinking her eyes, Buffy found she'd come to a complete halt in the corridor leading to the Mess Hall and beyond that her own little realm of the galley. Checking her wrist computer she saw that she still had about fifteen minutes before the first of the crew would be coming in and wanting their breakfast. Slayer speed and strength guaranteed she'd be ready in time, but Buffy couldn't help thinking that being able to make breakfast in a hurry was a major waste of her slayer abilities.

As she worked at frying bacon and eggs, cutting up bread for toast and fried bread, emptying packets of tomatoes and beans into containers to be heated in the galley's microwave cookers, Buffy found herself thinking about the crew; these thoughts made her frown again. While the crew were polite to her, no one was really friendly, everyone sort of kept her at arms length. No one stood and gossiped with her, no one had ever asked her if she was interested in starting a romantic liaison. No one sat with her when she was having a quiet cup of coffee in the mess hall between meals. Yes, everyone liked her cooking and said so, but... But she never thought the praise was particularly heartfelt, it was like they were complementing a food possessor for not screwing up the tea or coffee. It was weird because she could remember being on the Reluctant and helping out cooking the meals with LCW Young before the monster killed her, so, she must have known her shipmates back then. So why hadn't she got any friends now? She didn't really count Willow or Faith because they were either officers or senior enlisted.

No, Willow had said that the crew would warm to her again once she'd been cook for a while. But Buffy couldn't understand why the crew weren't already 'warmed' to her. She'd thought she'd found a couple of friends when two replacements turned up to fill the spots left by a couple of crewers who'd been killed on Altair IV. But after a day or so even these newbies started to act coldly towards her and Buffy couldn't understand why. Had she said or done something to make them back off? Was there something wrong with her? Did she smell of grease and oil? Sighing heavily, Buffy decided that she needed to have a long talk to Willow, or... No, even Willow seemed more distant than she used to be, and it wasn't just the 'officer' thing, So, really the only 'person' left she felt comfortable talking to and getting a straight answer from was Tara, the ship's AI. Tara would tell her what was wrong with her and why no one wanted to be her friend. But before she and Tara could talk there was breakfast to serve and an Admiral's party to prepare.

0=0=0=0

“I can't believe she's not human,” Able Crew Woman Alitza Bhatnagar whispered as she speared a piece of sausage with her fork.

“Yep,” Able Crew Woman Alison Lindstrom said around a mouthful of toast and marmalade, “we got her on Altair IV where this evil scientist called Morbius had made her to use her as a sex bot. Miz Rosenberg reprogrammed her and she took over Cookie Young's spot.”

“But I mean, she looks an' sounds so real,” Alitza stole a glance over to where Buffy was frying some eggs.

“Hey,” Alison smirked, “would you want your sex bot to look all just outta the box an' shiny?”

“I suppose not,” Alitza shook her head, “but...”

“But what?” Alison started to put more butter and marmalade on another piece of toast; it was the real stuff and all too soon they'd be back on possessed rations.

“It's sad how no one wants to talk to her...”

“She's a robot she doesn't need anyone to talk to.”

“Yeah I know,” Alitza looked sadly over to where Buffy worked, “but, when I was briefed about her I was told she didn't know she was a robot, she must be very lonely.”

“Hey,” Alison looked up from her breakfast, “you got a crush on our cute little toaster?”

“No!” Alitza looked from Buffy to Alison and then back to Buffy again, “But she _is_ cute...”

“And strong enough to rip both your arms off,” Alison added, “she might have been a sex-bot but she was also designed to be a bodyguard.”

“Yeah whatever...” when Alitza had been a teenager she'd had a girlfriend who was a slayer, so she wasn't worried about having a relationship with someone who was stronger than her and she felt sure Buffy would never harm her.

“Anyway,” Alison paused as she crunched down on her toast, “if y'gonna invite Robo-cookie there into y'rack you better clear it with Miz Rosenberg an' Cots Lehane first.”

“Yeah, I might just do that,” Alitza enjoyed the look of shock on her crew-mate's face as she finished her breakfast, “not only is she cute but she's a damned fine cook.”

0=0=0=0

**Later.**

“Open the pod bay doors please Tara,” Able Crew Woman Bhatnagar called from behind the controls of Pod One.

“I'm sorry I can't do that, Able Crew Woman Bhatnagar,” Tara the AI replied calmly, “not until Leading Crew Woman Summers puts on her helmet.”

“Oh come on, Tara,” Buffy wailed, “you wouldn't want me to go to the Admiral's Flagship with helmet hair, would you?”

“Helmet hair not withstanding,” Tara continued, “regulations clearly state that when a Pod is taken out into vacuum, crew members must wear vacuum suits with helmets on, but they may leave their face plates open.”

“But Tara...” Buffy whined.

“I can wait all day,” Tara pointed out metaphorically tapping her foot on the deck.

“Sometimes,” Alitza whispered, “she sounds just like one of my mums.”

“Oooooh!” Buffy cried in frustration before she reached behind her seat and retrieved her helmet, “Oh alright then...”

“There that's better...” Tara observed as she caused the doors to the pod bay to open, “... Able Crew Woman Bhatnagar you may proceed.”

“Thank-you Tara,” playing the pod's controls like a musical instrument, Alitza flew the pod out of the bay and set course for the flagship which was docked near Alor Station about five miles away.

The Pods were new and Reluctant carried three of them, which meant she'd had to have yet another refit to find room for the pods and the pod bays. The craft were small 'runabout' type vessels just big enough to carry two crew. In emergencies you could fit two fully armoured marines into the small cargo compartment behind the pilot and passenger seats, or a gun pack of two 7mm Gatling guns with their ammunition. Normally the pods would be used for maintenance work on the outside of the ship, or as now, inter-ship taxis. As the Reluctant didn't carry any shuttles the pods were the only way of getting crew from one ship to another if they weren't docked with each other. Although the pods could be used in both atmosphere or vacuum they couldn't enter an Earth-type atmosphere without burning up.

“I didn't know you could fly,” Buffy said as she glanced at the young woman sitting next to her.

“This isn't flying,” Alitza pointed out with a smile, “the pod does most of the work, I just point it in the right direction, there's really nothing to it...wanna try?”

“Can I?” Buffy asked in surprise.

“Sure, why not,” Alitza grinned, “its not like we'll hit anything out here.”

Apart from a couple of freighters the Reluctant was the only ship docked at the space station; the Admiral's flagship, the TASS Indomitable, was keeping station about five miles away

“Cool,” Buffy settled herself more firmly in her seat and looked at the controls, “what do I do?”

Under Alitza's quiet instruction, Buffy managed to turn the pod first to the left and then to the right, next she went 'up' and then 'down'. Finally she learnt how to alter the orientation of the pod without changing its direction of travel.

“That was really good,” Alitza said as she retook the controls, “you sure you've never flown anything before?”

“Sure,” Buffy shrugged, “they never taught us anything fun like this at cook's school.”

“Then you must be a natural,” Alitza pointed out, “you should ask the First Officer if you can take formal lessons. You never know when we might need extra pod pilots.”

“I had a totally great teacher,” Buffy smiled as she looked hopefully at Alitza again.

Wondering what was going on here, Buffy sat back in her seat as she watched the flagship get closer and closer. Alitza had been one of the replacements who'd been nice to her at first before turning cool towards her, now she seemed like she wanted to be friends again.

“Do you date?” Alitza asked as she made a small mid-course correction.

“What?” Buffy was a little surprised by the suddenness of the question.

“Do you date?” Alitza repeated, “Shipmates I mean...I know some women don't, but I was kinda wondering if you'd like to go to Alor City one day soon, I'm told its pretty wild and it might be fun.”

Alor City was the wild, almost lawless mining base on the planet's surface.

“Erm...” Buffy frowned, “...you sure you totally wanna go with me?”

“Yeah, why not?” Alitza nodded, “I mean we're only separated by one rank grade and I'm hardly asking you to marry me, so what do you say?”

“Okay,” Buffy's heart did a flip-flop in her chest at the thought of someone wanting to spend time with her, “when?”

“I've got a couple of days shore leave coming up starting Thursday, how about then?”

“Being the only cook I totally don't get days off...” Buffy frowned and Alitza looked disappointed, “but...I should be able to clear it with the Cots so I'll leave the galley and food processors on automatic so it should be totally fine.”

“Great,” Alitza sounded really excited about spending a couple of days alone with Buffy, “Thursday evening then.”

“Sure,” Buffy agreed before pausing for just a moment, “like, we'll totally be having sex, right?”

“Of course,” Alitza nodded.

“Thank The Lady for that,” Buffy sighed with relief, it felt like ages since she'd last had any sex that didn't involve internally powered pieces of plastic, “I thought you might just want to be friends or something...and asking now totally saves confusion later on.”

“Totally...” Alitza agreed, “...here's the flagship.”

The Terran Alliance Star Ship Indomitable was a huge ship, at least by Star Force standards, she had a crew of just over five-hundred plus an entire Marine company. She also carried assault shuttles, fighters and had five main turrets each armed with four sixteen inch mass drivers. Her hull was covered with hatches that hid her secondary armament of missile launchers, 75mm Gatling guns and the dozens of smaller point defence Gatling guns that made her almost invulnerable to missile attack. It was no wonder that Admiral Arikawa had chosen the great battle-wagon as her flagship. Now on the Admiral's forty-third birthday, she was moving her flag to command a battle squadron which was slated for pirate suppression duties in another part of Alliance space. The party that Buffy would be cooking for (along with the cooks from the space station) was sort of a farewell come birthday party all rolled into one.

“Main airlock looks a bit crowded,” Alitza pointed out of the pod's bubble like canopy to where several shuttles were crowded around the Indomitable's main airlock.

“My orders were to report to the main airlock,” Buffy said uncertainly, she didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by turning up in the wrong place.

“Not to worry,” Alitza guided the pod into a gap between two shuttles, “I see a slot.”

After several minutes manoeuvring, Alitza slipped the pod between the larger vessels and had married up their own crew hatch with the trunking which would let Buffy get aboard the Indomitable without having to actually use her vac-suit. After closing her face plate (the pods didn't have airlocks so it was wise to close your suit in case you opened the hatch to vacuum) she picked up her kit bag which contained two sets of working cook's whites and her 'best' set just in case she got presented to the Admiral herself.

“See you on Thursday,” Buffy said before opening the hatch.

“You'll see me before that,” Alitza smiled impishly, “I'm gonna make sure I'm the one to pick you up...maybe we can have a minor fault on the way back to the Reluctant.”

“Sounds like it might be fun,” Buffy giggled as she opened the hatch.

0=0=0=0

**Moment's later.**

Climbing out of the connecting tube and into the Indomitable's main airlock, Buffy closed the hatch behind her, dumped her kitbag on the floor; she opened her face plate and was nearly knocked off her feet by a big woman who was wheeling a large, black trunk towards the inner hatch. Regaining her balance Buffy saluted the Terran Alliance flag on the far wall of the compartment and then forced her way over to where a very annoyed looking Marine Corporal stood watching the chaos that was the airlock.

“Hi,” Buffy gasped after pushing her way through a crowd of barely clothed young women, “LCW Summers reporting,” she handed the Marine her ID and orders, “What the feck's goin' on?”

The Marine said nothing as she slipped Buffy's card into her reader, after checking that Buffy was who she said she was she relaxed and handed the piece of plastic back to her.

“Hi Cookie,” the Marine sighed, “this bunch of long hairs?” she gestured with destine to the civilians milling about her airlock, “They're the 'entertainment'...”

“Entertainment?” Buffy frowned as she too studied the 'people' who were making a total mess of the Corporal's airlock.

“Yeah,” the Marine sighed heavily, “there's a band in there somewhere, a troupe of exotic dancers...”

“Oh I think I saw them...” Buffy pointed vaguely into the whirling mass of humanity.

“...there's even a stage magician and The Lady knows what else.”

“Looks like its gonna be a totally wild party,” Buffy observed.

“Yeah...” the Marine looked grim faced at the passing entertainers, “...most of the crew and Marines got the night off in Alor City on the Admiral...guess what?”

“You drew the short straw?”

“Got it in one,” the Marine nodded, “anyway enough of my worries...you better get on ya way.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “like where's the galley?”

“First,” the Marine pointed to the inner hatch, “go through there an' turn right. On ya left you'll see a locker room. You can change and store ya vac-suit, when you've done that follow a bug to the galley its not far.”

“Thanks,” Buffy called as she pushed her way between the 'entertainment', “good luck with the...well you know what I mean.”

“Thanks Cookie,” the Marine gave Buffy a resigned wave as she disappeared into the crowd.

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

**Aboard the Terran Alliance Star Ship Indomitable.**

Standing to one side of the gym where the admiral's birthday party was to be held, Buffy marvelled at the size of the compartment. From the outside the Indomitable had looked huge, but it was only when she'd arrived on board that she had realised just how 'huge' the starship really was. Her own ship, the Reluctant, was so cramped it seemed to her that the crew quarters had been added as an after thought. Her own cabin was little more than a seven foot by five foot closet, she'd often thanked 'The Lady' that she wasn't claustrophobic.

From where Buffy stood with her back against the bulkhead, she watched as the 'entertainment' unloaded their props and equipment from large wheeled storage crates as civilian waiters moved around putting the finishing touches to the tables where the guests would sit. All this activity brought a frown to Buffy's face as she asked herself why the admiral wasn't using Star Force stewards to wait on table? Particularly as Star Force cooks were doing all the cooking; she could understand why the entertainers were civilian, but surely it would be better (and cheaper) for the waiters to be Star Force personnel. Another thing was, in Buffy's opinion, Star Force waiters would look smarter in their dress uniforms, not like these civilian waiters, she'd noticed more than few had unpolished shoes and their shirts were hanging out of the backs of their skirts. Very unprofessional she'd told herself.

Also what about the entertainers? There did seem to be an awful lot of them and to be honest to Buffy's untrained eye they didn't look very much like she thought entertainers should, however entertainers were supposed to look. They were moving very slowly for people that were supposed to be set-up and ready to start their performances in two hours time. Once again, to Buffy there looked to be an extreme lack of any sense of urgency here. Focusing in on one woman who was taking long boxes, which probably held guitars or some other musical instruments out of one of the crates, Buffy noticed how the woman seemed to be moving each case with extreme care. Okay, sure, Buffy understood that some musical instruments could be really valuable, but this woman was moving them like she thought the case might explode if she dropped them.

Without realising she was doing it, Willow had programmed Buffy not to notice, she homed in on the case, her eyes bringing it into sharp focus. The enlarged image let Buffy examine the case in detail, she saw nothing much out of the normal. However, as she watched another part of her neural possessors annualised the way the woman was moving. In no more than a microsecond she had decided that the case was a lot heavier than it should be; this information was confirmed when another woman rushed over to help the first. Something odd was going on here, but she couldn't work out what it was, as she was trying to think why anyone would want to bring overly heavy boxes onto the Indomitable, she was distracted by a commotion over to her left. Turning to look, Buffy saw an attractive young blonde woman who was slightly taller than herself, being ushered into the gym by a group of women who were _so_ bodyguards. The young woman and her bodyguards were accompanied by several other smartly dressed young women who gave the impression that they were assistants, there was also one older woman who's entire demeanour just screamed 'manager'.

“Who's she?” Buffy asked her sister cook who'd been taking her break at the same time as her.

“Who's she?” Buffy's companion asked incredulously as she turned to Buffy and looked at her as if she was insane or at least a simpleton.

“Hey,” Buffy shrugged, “my bunk's aboard a deep space cruiser,” she explained, “I don't get a lot of spare time to totally keep up with who's who an' what's what.”

“Even so,” the other girl replied, “I thought everyone knew who Stella Stardust was, no mater how deep into space they went.”

“Who?” Buffy asked, still none the wiser. 

The other cook looked at Buffy in surprise for a second time as the little group of bodyguards and hangers-on made their way across the gym.

“Stella Stardust?” Buffy's companion repeated slowly so Buffy would have no problem recognising the name again.

“No, sorry,” Buffy shrugged again, “I'm coming up blank here.”

“Just how deep in space have you been for the last five years?” asked the other cook, “You've got to have heard of Stella Stardust...”

“Nope,” Buffy shook her head and smiled helplessly; it was an unfortunate fact that Willow hadn't done as good a job as maybe she could have when she re-programmed Buffy's memory files.

“You're trying to tell me you've never heard of Stella Stardust actress, singer, star of stage, screen and 3DDVC?”

“Gotta say I'm coming up totally blank,” Buffy admitted.

“You mean you've not heard of the woman who's not been out of the entertainment pages for the last five years?” it was obvious that the girl couldn't believe that anyone could have been that far out in space as to never have heard of her favourite starlet. “You've never been to one of the concerts she put on for Star Force on the rim?”

“No,” once again Buffy shook her head.

“You musta been _way, way_ out in the black,” the girl sighed.

“Musta,” Buffy agreed, “so why's she here?”

“Why's she here...?” for a moment the other girl seemed lost for words, “Stella's only the Admiral's fav actress an' singer,” she explained, “so when she bursts outta the Admiral's birthday cake it's gonna be like a mega surprise!”

“Oh, I get that,” Buffy smiled, “its just that I've never heard of her before,” for a moment the smile left Buffy's lips as she wondered why, if this actress girl was so famous, why had she never heard of her, “whatever,” Buffy shrugged resignedly, “looks like I've got some catching up to do...”

“Too right you have, sister,” the other cook agreed with a firm nod of her head.

“Hey you two!” the words came from the mouth of the galley's CPO as she stuck her head around the door into the gym, “Break's over, get back in here and get back to work.”

“I thought slavery had been abolished,” Buffy whispered to her companion as they turned to leave the gym.

“It has,” agreed the other girl, “unless you join Star Force...”

“Whatever,” Buffy sighed again as she led her way back into the kitchen.

0=0=0=0

**Earlier aboard the Terran Alliance Star Ship Reluctant.**

Having come off watch, Willow and Faith were sitting in the mess hall (a grand name for an area that was no larger than the average living room) sharing a quiet, late breakfast before turning in and getting some sleep.

“This is good stuff,” Faith observed as she pushed her empty plate away, “even if it is from the processors.”

It was an article of faith that the food processors could screw up hot water, so when they turned out something that actually tasted like it was supposed to it merited comment.

“I think Buffy's been tweaking the programming,” Willow replied as she put down her knife and fork.

“She can do that?” Faith asked her interest piqued.

“It's not how I programmed her,” Willow shrugged, “but I did program her to learn so she must have picked it up from somewhere.”

“All the manuals are in Tara's memory files,” Faith explained, “an' there's like nothing to do off watch so...” 

“Yeah,” Willow nodded her head slowly, “maybe I should keep an eye on what she's reading.”

“Yeah maybe,” Faith seemed lost in thought for a moment.

“Penny for them?” Willow asked.

“Huh?” Faith looked at her friend a puzzled expression on her face.

“Penny for you're thoughts,” Willow clarified.

“Oh, yeah,” Faith smiled at letting her mind wander, “y'know something that's been bugging me since we first saw Buffy on Altair Four...”

“What's that?”

“Why does Buffy look like Buffy?”

“That sounds like a very _deep_ question,” Willow frowned, “perhaps you should ask a priestess next time you see one.”

“Nah,” Faith shook her head, “what I'm saying is, why did Morbius build a sex-bot that looks almost exactly like our Buffy? I mean it can't just be coincidence...I mean,” Faith grinned, “apart from the nose she got all the details right.”

“Yeah, that's sorta made me wonder too,” Willow agreed, “I mean she did a crap job of programming if she'd actually wanted her sex-bot to act like Buffy, but...”

“And you killed her before we had a chance to ask her,” Faith pointed out.

“Hey!” Willow exclaimed, “It seemed like the thing to do at the time...”

“Still,” Faith shrugged, “so not like you Will.”

“I know,” Willow shrugged, “I don't know what came over me I just saw her as a mega threat an' knew she had to die, so...”

“Yeah, whatever, like bodies under the bridge,” Faith waved away all of Willow's concerns, “ya did the right thing, but that still doesn't explain why Buffy looks so much like Buffy...apart from the nose...”

“I think her present nose is cuter,” Willow observed, “Perhaps Morbius saw a picture of our Buffy,” she steered the conversation away from Buffy's nose, “perhaps she'd been fantasising about having sex with Buffy for years and landing on Altair Four gave her a way of making those fantasies real.”

“Maybe,” Faith yawned, “hey, I don't know about you but this slayer needs to get her head down for a few hours.”

“Yeah,” Willow agreed as she stood up, collected their plates and placed them in the reclamation unit in the mess hall wall, “gotta say I could do with a good eight hours.”

“Okay, L-t,” Faith became more formal again as she stood up, “see ya for next watch?”

“Yeah,” Willow grinned, “maybe we can go through another combat simulation an' not get the ship blown up.”

“Hey, L-t, ya did fine,” Faith commiserated, “Tara was cheating is'all.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Willow replied, “until the next time.”

“Night, L-t.”

“Night, Chief.” 

Getting back to her tiny cabin, Faith started to undress, she really did feel tired which was pretty unusual for her; perhaps she should let the MO check her out before she went on watch again. Climbing into her narrow bed, Faith lay back on her pillows, although she was tired she couldn't fall asleep straight away, visions of Buffy kept intruding on her mind.

“Tara,” Faith called.

“Chief?” the AI replied.

“Find a picture of LCW Summers would you and run it through all your history files and see what matches you can find.”

“How far back should I go?” Tara asked.

“As far as you've got records.”

“Remember pre-Fall records are incomplete,” the AI pointed out.

“Do the best you can,” Faith told the AI, “send the results to my personnel pad so I can look at them when I wake up, okay?”

“I hear and obey, Chief.”

“Hey, less of the snarky remarks,” Faith laughed, “Goodnight Tara.”

“Sleep well Cots,” Tara replied as she began a search of her history files.

0=0=0=0

**TASS Indomitable.**

After adding the last piece of garnish, Buffy stood back to admire her handiwork. There before her, neatly arranged on half a dozen plates were three hundred perfectly triangular sandwiches, each one had had its crusts cut off and were filled with an interesting verity of delicious filling. However, Buffy's mouth went into a serious frown as her eyes fell on the anchovy and banana filled ones; she sighed, there was no accounting for taste...or the lack there of. Smiling at the thought of a job well done (except perhaps at those anchovy and banana sandwiches) she started to clear up her work station, however she was brought up short by the sound of the galley's CPO's voice who'd somehow come up behind her without her noticing.

“LCW Summers...” the CPO began but her voice faded out when she saw all the perfectly made sandwiches, “...well done Summers,” the older woman continued, “those have to be the most perfect sandwiches I've ever seen.”

“Thank-you, Chief,” Buffy turned and beamed a million candle power smile at the senior NCO, “I always try to do my best.”

“So it seems,” the CPO agreed, “I've one last job for you, when you've done that you can cut along to the air lock and call for your ride back to your ship.”

“Thanks Chief,” Buffy gave a small sigh of relief; it wasn't that she hadn't enjoyed her time on the Indomitable, but she wanted to get back to her own galley where there was no one to tell her what to do, plus that nice girl, Alitza had said she'd pilot the pod to bring her back to the Reluctant.

“I hear you're stronger than you look,” the CPO said, “is that right?”

“Hmm, sorry Chief?” Buffy had let her mind wonder at the thought of some possible smoochies with Alitza on the way home when the pod had 'technical' problems and they'd have to stop and fix them.

“You're stronger than you look,” repeated the CPO.

“Oh! Yeah...right,” Buffy nodded her head, “way stronger, supergirl Buffy that's me.”

“Supergirl, huh?” the CPO gave Buffy a leery glance, “Okay, we'll see how strong you really are...I want you to go down to the stores and bring up one hundred soup plates, right? The good ones.”

“One hundred soup plates,” Buffy nodded, “right...erm...?”

“What now Summers?” asked the CPO testily.

“The stores?” Buffy gave a helpless shrug.

“Two decks down,” the CPO started to give instructions, “three corridors to the port side then one deck up and three frames forward, one corridor to starboard then three decks down and two frames aft. You can't miss it, it's the first hatch on the left.”

“Oooookay,” Buffy tried to memorise the instructions, “I don't suppose there's a turbo-lift or something?” the CPO shook her head, “Right,” Buffy sighed heavily as she turned away from the CPO and started off on her mission, “what the fecking-feck do they want one hundred soup plates for? I mean they aren't even serving soup.”

It was true, there was no soup on the menu, and why, if they needed one hundred soup plates, couldn't they just replicate them? That's what she would have done in the unlikely event of herself ever needing one hundred soup plates aboard the Reluctant. So distracted by what the CPO wanted with all those soup plates, Buffy was soon hopelessly lost.

“Now did she say three decks down, or two?” Buffy asked as she stood at the junction of two corridors.

Looking down the deserted corridors, she could see no sign of a store room where large numbers of soup plates might be hidden. For a moment Buffy considered forgetting about the soup plates and heading back to the main air lock instead. Once there she could call the Reluctant and be long gone before that demanding CPO even noticed. However, looking up and down those empty passageways, Buffy wasn't even sure she could find her way back to the air lock. A horrible thought hit her, what if she couldn't find her way out, what if she was stuck down here in the bowels of the ship, doomed to wander the maze-like corridors until thirst and hunger over took her and her dried up, mummified corpse was found years later!?

What Buffy felt as panic and anxiety was actually her processors going into a feed-back loop. Before she went into a full scale cascade failure, her emergency processors, the ones that mostly dealt with combat situations did a rapid reboot and within micro seconds, Buffy was back to her normal self and was wondering why she'd felt so panicky because there was nothing really to panic about. Seeing a stairway leading up, she walked over to it and started to climb. As she climbed the thought hit her that if there were some crew about she could ask for directions. It was then that the regulations on Star Force Ship Security bubbled to the surface of her cybernetic mind.

How come, she asked herself, were there so few crew aboard? Normally while in dock even in a safe area there would be at least a skeleton crew aboard. Even with the Admiral having a birthday party and sending the crew down to the planet to have there own party, there should be more than a few cooks and a couple of Marines around. Okay so the ship's captain and a few of her senior officers were probably still aboard, but that didn't alter the fact that there'd been a major breach of security protocols; Buffy decided she'd mention it to Faith.

Getting to the top of the ladder-like stairs, Buffy found herself confronted by yet more empty companionways. Choosing a direction, more or less at random, she started to walk, she'd not gone more than a few yards when a distant noise brought her to a sudden halt. Cocking her head to the right, Buffy listened intently. Not having to worry about anything other than the soft hum her systems made and being able to filter out the noises made by the ship, she replayed the sound she'd heard over again. There was no mistaking the sound, it was very distinctive, it was definitely gunfire! Of course Buffy didn't realise she was doing any of this, as far as she was concerned she'd just been listening very carefully, Willow had done a really good job of programming Buffy so she’d never work out she was a robot. 

“Now why would anyone be shooting?” Buffy asked herself; visions of Mexican celebrations with people firing pistols into the air popped into her mind to be dismissed almost immediately. The alternative reasons for gunfire aboard a starship safely in orbit around a friendly world, didn't bare thinking about, “This sounds bad...” she told herself.

Now she had something to lock onto, Buffy started to walk with a purpose towards the sound of the shooting. Pausing at a junction, she was just trying to work out which direction to go in when another short burst of firing came to her hyper-sensitive-electronic ears. This time the firing was closer and maybe two decks up and a couple of corridors over to starboard, which would put it in or around the main airlock. Any thoughts of getting back to the Reluctant and perhaps making out with Alitza on the journey home fled from Buffy's mind. As she walked to the next flight of stairs, not once did she question how come she could hear things that a normal person or even a slayer would have missed; Willow really had done a very good job of programming her not to notice these little quirks.

After climbing up two sets of ladder-like stairs and walking down seemingly endless corridors, Buffy eventually got to the corridor outside the main airlock. Sniffing she could smell burnt propellant, someone had fired a weapon here within the last few minutes. Moving on silent feet, she walked cautiously over to where she could see into the compartment just outside the airlock. Peeping around the corner of the hatchway, she saw two of the entertainers holding assault rifles as they stood near the dead body of the marine who'd welcomed her aboard.

“Pirates!” Buffy told herself quietly.

_0=0=0=0_


	4. Chapter 4

**Aboard the TASS Indomitable.**

“Hey girls!” Buffy called out as she burst into the air-lock's ante-chamber, “What's going on? Where is everyone?”

Sometimes its an advantage to be short, blonde and cute looking; people don't see you as a threat until it's _way_ too late. This was certainly true of the two pirates who were standing guard just outside the air-lock. First they'd been told that all the Indomitable's crew were either off ship, dead or captured, second they didn't expect to be accosted by a cute looking blonde girl in chef's whites. To their credit they recovered from Buffy's unexpected appearance with commendable speed. But, even as they shifted their stance and started to move their rifles to cover the newcomer it was already too late for them to actually do anything.

By the time the two pirates had got Buffy covered, she'd moved with deceptive speed so she was within easy striking range of the freebooters. Hitting the first space-buccaneer in the chest with a fist that was harder and moved more quickly than any slayer's, Buffy heard the raider's ribs break under the force of her blow. The pirate's eyes went wide with shock as her ribs shattered and punctured her lungs; coughing up blood the space-pirate slumped to the floor drowning as she tried to breath using lungs that were rapidly filling with blood. Turning faster than a striking rattlesnake, Buffy struck out at the second pirate, her foot coming into rapid and devastating contact with the plunderer's leg. There was a loud ' **crack!** ', almost as loud as a pistol shot as the space-rover's shin bone exploded into a multitude of bone fragments. Screaming in agony the pirate dropped her rifle on the deck and fell down next to it, moaning and crying she clutched at her ruined leg.

Coming to a halt and standing unnaturally still for a moment, Buffy's combat routines went back to standby mode, they'd not switch off completely until her central processors told her that everything was back to normal aboard the Indomitable. Although Buffy had moved faster than even the fastest, most experienced slayer could, she didn't think this was in anyway unusual. If asked Buffy would simply reply that she'd used her normal slayer-powers and had caught the two pirates off guard. Only Willow or Faith would know the truth when they reviewed Buffy's memory files.

Kicking the pirate's rifles out of reach of the wounded freebooter, not that Buffy saw the injured buccaneer as any kind of threat, the woman was too preoccupied with her injured leg to be dangerous. The truth was that the pirate's leg could either be repaired or replaced; not that this was likely to happen, one way or another the pirate would soon be dead. The Terran Alliance Star Force had a zero tolerance policy towards pirates; these days pirates weren't just tossed out of air-locks without the benefit of a vacuum suit. No, in these more enlightened times a pirate could expect to get a scrupulously fair trial...just before she was tossed out of an air-lock without a vacuum suit. There was even a chance that she might get off with life imprisonment...on some really unpleasant prison planet; but to be honest death by vacuum was a far kinder sentence. Piracy was bad, it was bad for trade which meant it was bad for the Alliance; it also meant that Star Force had to divert urgently needed warships to anti-piracy duties rather than have them protecting womankind from the very real threat of interstellar demons.

Kneeling down next to the Marine's body, Buffy checked that the Marine was actually dead and not just faking it or unconscious. Sighing heavily, Buffy's fingers and other senses that she didn't even know she was using told her that there was no pulse, respiration or brain activity. The Marine corporal was dead from gunshot wounds, as all the red holes in her chest would seem to attest. Shaking her head in sorrow, Buffy closed the Marine's eyes before taking her ID card and putting it in the pocket of her uniform pants. It was not real sorrow that Buffy felt, nor had she really 'liked' the Marine corporal, her social-intercourse files told her that these were the appropriate responses even if the only person to witness them was the wounded freebooter who was at the moment making her way slowly and painfully across the deck towards the corridor.

Picking up the Marine's M10 side arm Buffy stood up walked the couple of paces needed to bring herself up behind the pirate. Standing over the raider, she cocked the M10, selected single shot and calmly shot the pirate in the back of the her uninjured knee. Another emotion that Buffy couldn't actually feel, but only mimic, was pity. The pirate screamed as her other leg was put out of action, Buffy waited until the girl had stopped screaming and was only sobbing as she writhed in agony. Using her foot, Buffy kicked the pirate-girl onto her back, this action elicited another bout of pain induced crying and begging Buffy not to hurt her any more. 

“Shut-up!” Buffy snapped as she kicked the pirate in the ribs cracking several of them as she did so; the buccaneer gasped with new pain, “Okay, I'm not going to lie to you,” in fact Buffy would if she thought there'd be an advantage in doing so; however her central processors knew that the pirate wouldn't believe that she wasn't going to die. “You've got two choices; either tell me what I want to know and you die quick and clean, or you lie and try to fool me or you don't talk. In that case its out the airlock in a leaky vac-suit after I've spent half-an-hour seeing how many bones I can break...and just to show you that I can...”

Buffy reached out and grabbed hold of the pirate's hand, she squeezed and broke every finger, again the pirate girl screamed in agony.

“PLEASE STOP!” she begged, “I'll talk! I'll talk!”

“I wonder how many times people have said that to you?” Buffy said as she sat down on the blood flecked floor cradling the M10 in her lap, “Okay,” Buffy took in a deep breath that did nothing more than help cool her robotic brain, “tell me what the fecking heck is going on...you can't really believe that you can raid a Star Force base an' get away with it, right?”

“You can if you've got someone with all the security codes working for you,” replied the buccaneer with a sneer.

“Stop sneering!” Buffy reinforced her order with a sharp blow to the pirate's elbow which shattered the joint causing another outburst of screaming and crying. “Stop screaming,” Buffy said as she raised her fist ready to strike; seeing this the pirate tried to control herself so the insane cook wouldn't hurt her any more. “Okay who've you got working for you?”

“That's the best part,” the pirate chuckled through her tears, “its your Admiral...”

“Admiral Arikawa's a traitor!?” Buffy gasped simply not believing her central processors, “You're lying,” Buffy reached out for the pirate's undamaged arm, “do you know how many bones there are in the human body?” Buffy actually waited for an answer, but when none was forthcoming she added, “Well, neither do I, but I'm sure that I can break most of them before you die.”

“No!” the pirate tried to move away from the bloodthirsty cook but only succeeded in causing herself more pain as the ends of shattered bones rubbed against each other. “No! Its true the Admiral's fed up with being told what to do by you Ally bitches, she wants to live free!”

“Free to die you mean...” Buffy smiled nastily down at the pirate, “...just like you, so what's the plan, steal the Indomitable and use her as a pirate ship?”

“That's about it,” the buccaneer agreed.

“It'll never...” Buffy had been about to say that this bold and daredevil plan had no chance of succeeding.

Before she could finish vocalising the thought, Buffy's strategic sub-routines told that it could work and if it did it would mean big trouble for the Alliance. The Indomitable was the biggest, most powerful warship in the sector. Star Force would need to send a Battle Squadron and scouting units to hunt her down and destroy her. However, there was no guarantee that any force sent after the Indomitable would ever find her; space was big, you just couldn't imagine how big space is, you might think its a long walk down to the shops, but that's just peanuts to space. With something so mindbogglingly big, there were always plenty of places to hide. Unless any Star Force ships set after Indomitable got lucky the chances were that they'd never find her if she didn't want to be found.

“Never work? Is that what you were about to say Ally?” smirked the pirate; Buffy being so distracted didn't even bother to break any bones to punish the pirate for smirking.

“Oh feck...” Buffy sighed as the true seriousness of the situation filtered through the silicone that passed for her mind.

“Yeah, 'oh feck'” the buccaneer almost sniggered, “you're totally screwed, Ally. Give us a year an' this sector will be ours...”

“But you'll not be alive to see it,” Buffy pointed out, “Okay, I take it that you've killed all the crew that were left on board?”

“Yeah, apart from a few of the younger ones we'll take them home to be breeders...”

“Oh, yuck...” Buffy sighed, “...an' I'm guessing that all the waiters and entertainers that came aboard earlier were actually pirates.”

“Yeah, you know you're smarter than the average Ally, why not join us and...AAAGH!”

Buffy broke the pirate's nose with a casual strike of the fist, reviewing her memories from earlier in the day Buffy estimated pirate numbers as being around one hundred, more than enough to crew the Indomitable until they could get to a base were the new owners could take on a full crew.

“Okay, one last question...” Buffy shifted her position so she was looking directly into the pirate's face, “...Which great exponent of Cartesian dualism resists the reduction of psychological phenomena to a physical state and insists that there is no...” Buffy stopped herself from completing her thought as she wondered why these strange words had entered her mind.

After a moment or two's more thought she took hold of the pirate's head and was just about to snap her neck when the woman spoke...

“Henri Bergson...” groaned the pirate, unexpectedly giving the correct answer.

“Whatever,” Buffy shrugged her shoulders; there was a sound like a rotten branch breaking the pirate breathed her last.

Standing up, Buffy looked down at herself to see her whites covered with flecks of blood.

“Ewww...” Buffy said once again; she needed some blood free clothes and a disguise might be a good idea.

As she stripped the pirates and the Marine corporal of their least blood stained clothing, Buffy tried to work out a plan of action. Planning came easier to this robotic version of Buffy than it ever had to the real, flesh and blood Buffy. Within a few seconds Robo-Buffy had several tactical plans covering all the likely tactical situations her combat routines could come up with. Her strategic objectives were simple, she had to prevent the traitor admiral and her pirate henchwomen from taking away the Indomitable. To this end she needed to get help to retake the ship. Failing that she'd have to retake the ship by herself and if that didn't work out she needed to destroy the ship.

Getting help would require her getting to and using the ship's communications. This option meant she'd need to fight her way through the pirate crew and use the ship's comms gear if it hadn't already been destroyed or otherwise put out of action. Destroying the ship would entail a trip down to the engineering where she could rig the Faster Than Light drives to explode when they were engaged; she knew how to do this even if this sort of knowledge wasn't normally given to mere cooks. Buffy didn't question how she came to know this sort of highly classified information, she just knew it and that was good enough for her. Destroying the ship would probably mean her own destruction as she couldn't risk the pirates discovering what she'd done before the ship exploded. She'd need to stay in the engine room until the pirates engaged the FTL drives or she engaged them herself.

About the only one of Asimov's 'Laws Of Robotics' that Willow had bothered programming into the Buffy-sex-bot was the one about not allowing herself to be destroyed or damaged. Yes, within narrowly defined limits, Buffy wouldn't kill people, or the other one about allowing a person to be harmed because of her inaction. Mostly, Willow hadn't programmed these rules into Buffy because it would make her less 'human'. After all human's could be a pretty rotten bunch and having a 'Dudley-do-right/supergirl' character running around always saving the day would get people thinking that Buffy wasn't one-hundred-percent 'real'. So, Willow had programmed her to, on occasion, standby and let someone come to harm, plus the ability to kill was a great advantage to someone (robotic or human) who was serving as a member of a military organisation. So, the only rule Willow had programmed into Buffy was the one about letting herself come to harm; yes she would sacrifice herself. After all that's what the real Buffy had done on more than one occasion. But, Robo-Buffy wasn't going to hurl herself in front of the speeding bullet or indeed the exploding star drive on a mere whim. No, if she was going to 'self-terminate' there had to be no other way of doing whatever needed to be done.

This left the, 'wipe out the pirates by herself option'. Buffy's tactical routines told her that she could, if she was careful and given enough time and ammunition. Luck just didn't enter her calculations. Now dressed in the almost blood free clothing belonging to the pirates (the Marine's uniform was far too blood stained and full of holes to wear), Buffy looked to see what supplies she had. First she had the Marine's M10. Pulling the belt with its holster and spare magazine pouches from the corporal's corpse, Buffy buckled it on around her own waist. Next she picked up one of the pirate's assault rifles. On examining it she found it to be a fairly standard weapon of Terran manufacture. It was a little longer than a Marine issue M-TAR rifle but it was still short enough to be handy in the confines of a ship, it even had a set of good quality optical sights, but Buffy wouldn't be needing those.

The weapon she was holding was clean and well maintained so she decided to go with the rifle she was holding. Stripping her first victim of her combat harness, Buffy put it on and adjusted the straps so it more or less fitted. Next she stripped her torture victim of spare magazines and anything else that might come in handy.

“Now I have a machine-gun,” Buffy smiled to herself; she didn't really, she had a 7mm assault rifle, but it sounded like the right thing to say.

Hauling back on the cocking handle, Buffy caught the ejected cartridge in her hand, the weapon used plastic cases and not the caseless ammunition used by the regulation M-TAR rifle, but she could live with that. Satisfied that the weapon was loaded and functional, she rested the butt on her hip and walked out into the corridor. Thinking that the bridge might be a good target, but unsure which way to go, Buffy set out in the direction that she knew would take her to the galley. If she came across a pirate she might be able to torture the location of the bridge out of her or maybe gain access to a computer terminal and find out that way. Having only walked a dozen or so yards along the corridor, Buffy heard voices coming towards her from around the corner of the corridor junction, letting her rifle fall from off her hip, she pointed it casually down the passageway.

“Hey! Man-fucker!” yelled an unpleasant looking pirate woman at the head of a small force of three other equally unpleasant looking pirates, “What's with all the screaming an' yellin' down here an' why aren't you at your post an' why...!?”

The pirate Chief didn't get to finish her question because Buffy pulled the trigger of her rifle four times. There were four sharp 'cracks' and half a second later there were four dead pirates lying bleeding on the corridor floor.

“Only ninety-six left to go, this is like _too_ easy!” Buffy told herself as she checked the bodies for spare ammunition.

Coming away with only two spare magazines, Buffy's face lit up as she found a couple of grenades and an interestingly sharp knife.

“Cool,” she smiled as she examined the weapon; however any thoughts of the fun she could have with the knife left her face as she realised something.

The pirates had obviously been sent to investigate the noise made by herself and her torture victim. This meant that the pirates had at least some of the ship's security systems working and under their control, this also meant that she also couldn't risk to take the time out to torture any new prisoners for information.

“Darn!” Buffy stamped her foot in frustration; well if she couldn't torture the information out of anyone she'd need to find a computer terminal, another thought hit her right after the first.

A ship the size of the Indomitable should have her own AI, what was the AI doing and why hadn't it tried to contact her or the space station? There was of course the possibility that the AI had been compromised in which case her task had just got a lot harder. But first she needed a computer terminal, looking up and down the corridor Buffy saw several hatches behind which there probably the very thing she was looking for. Picking a hatch more or less at random, Buffy opened it and stepped into the compartment beyond. Even before she'd dogged the hatch closed behind her, she knew there was someone else in the room with her. The question was; would they be friends?

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

**TASS Indomitable.**

Turning to face the compartment after securely locking the hatch behind her, Buffy noted that someone had disabled the lights and she was in fact standing in the dark. The fact that someone had taken the time to cut out the lighting circuit, suggested to her that whoever was in the compartment with her was probably hiding from the pirates too and had at least some electrical knowledge. This also probably meant that there was a member of the Indomitable's crew in the compartment, however, she wasn't going to take any chances.

Without even realising she was doing it, Buffy's visual sensors cycled through the light wavebands until they came to infra-red. Her eyes glowed redly as she scanned the compartment and sure enough she saw a heat source emanating from behind a locker, shifting her weapon to cover the heat source, she continued to scan the room, it would be foolish to assume there was only one other person in the compartment and Willow hadn't programmed her to take things for granted. 

The compartment appeared to be some sort of storeroom come workshop, there were racks holding oddly shaped pieces of metal and plastic that Buffy vaguely recognised as valves. There was a long workbench scattered with tools; a part of Buffy's mind noted that whoever worked here wasn't very tidy, but there was no sign of any other possible crew-women or intruders. Moving a half step to her left, she got into a position where she could see the heat source more clearly and confirmed to herself that it was in fact one woman crouched down behind a locker. Swinging her rifle on to her back by its carrying strap Buffy inadvertently made a noise as her rifle clicked against part of her combat harness. The shape behind the locker moved slightly and made a quiet whimpering sound. Not bothering to wait any longer Buffy stepped forward and grabbed the woman and dragged her from her hiding place.

“Please don't kill me!” cried the woman as Buffy dragged her roughly towards the centre of the room, “I'm rich!” sobbed the woman, “I can make you a wealthy pirate if you let me go...”

“Who are you?” Buffy demanded; by now she'd got her left arm around the woman's neck and had her captured knife ready to be slipped between a couple of ribs and into the woman's kidneys.

“Please, please don't kill me,” cried the woman as she sobbed and struggled weakly against Buffy's vice-like hold, “I don't wanna die, I've got so much left to give...l-look I'll be your slave if you just don't kill me...”

“I'll fecking kill you if you don't stop crying and tell me your name!” Buffy snapped back.

“I'm Stella Stardust...” replied Buffy's prisoner between body shaking sobs.

“The singer, actress girl?” Buffy asked as she loosened her grip on the girl's neck slightly.

“That's right,” a little hope entered Stella's voice, maybe she wouldn't be dying today after all, “I told you I was rich, right?”

“Okay,” Buffy let go of the actress and took a step away from her; she watched the girl stand uncertainly in the dark for a moment before speaking again, she certainly looked like the young woman she'd seen earlier but it was difficult to tell for sure just using infra-red, “I'm Leading Crew Woman Buffy Summers...”

“Buffy?” Stella's voice took on a sharper edge.

“Hey don't knock the name and remember I've got all the guns and the knife,” Buffy pointed out warningly.

“So you're Star Force?” Stella asked, the hope of rescue raising in her heart. “Oh! Thank The Lady!” she gasped and flung herself in Buffy's general direction; after a couple of failed attempts she managed to enfold Buffy in a warm embrace as she smothered Buffy's face with kisses, “Hmmm!” Stella mumbled between kisses, “Get me outta her an' you can have anything you want, fame, money...me!”

“Yeah right,” Buffy fought the girl off easily with just one hand, “whatever, but before you can make me like totally rich and famous we've gotta get outta here, first, can you get the lights back on?”

“Yeah,” Stella had now regained control of her emotions and had let Buffy go, “if you can help me find the circuit box...I'm guessing from the way you're eyes are glowing red you're using some sort of night vision aid.”

“Yeah something like that,” Buffy agreed as she scanned the bulkhead near the hatch, spotting a likely suspect, Buffy called Stella over and then led her to the wall, “is this it?” she asked as she guided Stella's hands to the box, the lights came on moments later, “Hey that was neat,” Buffy smiled as her eyes went back to normal, “how'd you learn to do that?”

“Its easy really...” Stella began as she stood up and turned to face Buffy, she screamed, “AAAAAAGH! YOU'RE A PIRATE! YOU TRICKED ME!”

“I am _so_ not a pirate,” Buffy was beginning to regret not killing this girl when she’d had the chance, “my uniform got covered in blood and the only thing to change into was the clothes of the pirates I'd just killed.”

“You're sure?” Stella asked hoping against hope for the answer that wouldn't get her raped and killed or killed and raped, or locked up in a prison camp where she'd be forced to have babies until it killed her.

“Uh-huh,” Buffy nodded; now the lights were on, she could see a young woman in her mid-twenties, like most people she was taller than her, she had short blonde hair and big blue eyes.

“You're a little short for a Star Force Marine,” Stella pointed out.

“I'm not a Marine,” Buffy corrected her, “I'm a cook.”

“A COOK!?” Stella screeched as the prospect of serial pregnancies once again loomed large in her mind (never mind the possibility of rape and death).

“Hey,” Buffy replied her feelings hurt at having her profession called into question, “I'm a very good cook...”

“Never mind the cooking,” Stella pointed out, “how are you planning on saving me from hundreds of lust crazed pirates?”

“I'm not,” Buffy replied shortly.

“You're not!?” Stella gasped, “But...?”

“And anyway there's not 'hundreds of pirates'...”

“Sure looked like it to me,” Stella reaffirmed.

“Nah,” Buffy shook her head, “there were never more than a hundred and I've killed six of them all ready, so there's really only about ninety-four...”

“Ninety-four?” all the colour drained from Stella's face as she resigned herself to being impregnated and having multiple births every twelve months until she died.

“Anyway,” Buffy moved towards the hatch as she unslung her rifle, “we've got to take back the ship.”

“Hey no!” Stella shook her head, “I'm an entertainer not a commando!”

“Its like, totally easy,” Buffy pulled the M10 from its holster and held it out to Stella, “can you use one of these?”

“No!” Stella shook her head firmly.

“Look its simple,” Buffy let go of her rifle and used both hands to demonstrate the M10's workings, “you push this catch forward with your thumb, then pull this knob back with your other hand and then let go. You point it at whoever you want to shoot and keep pulling the trigger until they're dead, I've put it on five round bursts...”

“Ooooooh!” wailed Stella as she took the weapon uncertainly from Buffy's hand.

“When you've run out of bullets the magazine ejects automatically and you slam in a spare.”

“Spare?”

“Spare magazine,” Buffy continued as she took off the belt holding the pouch with the spare magazines, “so don't go wild, okay?”

“Don't worry I won't,” Stella attempted to put the belt around her waist while still holding the M10 in her hands.

“Good, coz we've only got four mags for that thing...”

“Four mags...?” Stella mumbled as she finally managed to get the belt buckled around her waist.

“Yeah, about a hundred rounds...”

“Okay! Time out!” Stella grabbed hold of Buffy's arm in an attempt to stop her moving off, “Are you trying to tell me that you intend to retake the ship from all those pirates.”

“Ninety-four,” Buffy smiled confidently, “plus or minus four or five.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy nodded.

“A cook and a singer against all those blood thirsty pirates?”

“That's like only forty-seven each,” Buffy pointed out, “and I don't think any of them are vampires.”

“Vampires?”

“Blood thirsty?”

“Oh...”

“Come on, the sooner we start the sooner we'll finish,” Buffy went back to un-dogging the hatch.

“You're insane.”

“Whatever,” Buffy shrugged as she swung open the hatch and came face-to-face with two pirates.

“AAAGH!” Screamed Stella.

“Feck!” cursed Buffy as she aimed her rifle and fired from the hip; the two pirates dropped dead on the spot, neat 7mm holes drilled in their foreheads.

“W-what!?” Stella looked from the dead pirates to Buffy and back again, “Just what sort of cook are you?”

“I told you,” Buffy answered as she stepped over the corpses, “a very good one.”

0=0=0=0

“So,” Buffy asked quietly as the two young women crept along a passage-way that led who knew where, “what happened to you?”

“What?” Stella was a little distracted by all the death and mayhem, so she'd not really heard Buffy's question.

“What happened to you?” Buffy repeated, “Like how did you escape and not get totally killed?”

“Oh, yeah that...” Stella paused for a moment as she gathered her thoughts, “...I was inside the cake...”

“Cake?” Buffy stopped turned and gave her companion a puzzled look.

“Yeah, cake,” Stella explained without actually explaining, “I was supposed to jump out of this big, honking, fake, cake...”

“Fake cake,” Buffy giggled quietly, as her comedic sub-routines flexed their cybernetic muscles.

“Whatever,” Stella sighed heavily before continuing with her story, “I was rehearsing and I'd been wheeled into the gym, that's when everything started to go all screwy...”

“Screwy?” Buffy asked.

“Yeah, like there's all these bangs that I thought where fire-crackers, but they weren't coz when I jumped outta the cake there were all these dead bodies an' blood everywhere and people were shouting an' screaming an'...an'...!”

“Breath!” Buffy ordered as she once again turned to look at the woman with her.

“Okay...okay...I'm good,” Stella took a deep breath and calmed down, “then before I could run some bitch with no boobs and bad breath grabbed me and dragged me to the side of the gym where they were keeping the rest of the prisoners.”

“So they didn't kill everyone?” Buffy asked.

“No,” Stella shook her head, “they spared any of the younger crewers they could find. They said something about them being good additions to their baby farms...”

“Ewww,” Buffy said with some feeling, “so how did you like get away?”

“Luck really,” Stella replied.

“Go on,” Buffy urged.

“We prisoners were all lined up against the wall...”

“Bulkhead,” Buffy corrected.

“Whatever,” Stella shrugged, “anyway, there was this door which led back into the kitchen. They'd only put one guard on us so when she looked away I slipped out through the door and ran!”

“Where did you run to?” Buffy wanted to know.

“I don't know,” Stella exclaimed angrily, “I just ran, I was scared, I just ran as fast as I could, I didn't stop to make a map.”

“Pity,” Buffy mused.

“Pity?”

“Yeah about the map,” Buffy explained.

“Hold on...” Stella stopped causing Buffy to stop as well, “...I've just realised something...”

“You have?” Buffy replied slowly.

“You don't know where we are, do you?”

“No,” Buffy admitted with a shrug, her dirty little secret having been discovered.

“In fact you're just as lost as I am, right?”

“Yeah,” Buffy's shoulders slumped in a little in despair, “look, this isn't my ship, I was over here to help out in the kitchens I followed a 'bug' from the airlock to the galley, I've no idea where the bridge or anything is.”

“Didn't you think to get a map, or ask the ship's AI?” Stella stood looking down at Buffy her hands on her hips.

“I was looking for a map when I found you,” Buffy explained defensively, “and I think the AI is totally off line or something which means the bugs won't work.”

“Right, I think I better take charge from now....AAAH!” Stella screamed as four pirates burst on them from around a corner; the pirates must have heard them arguing because they had their weapons ready as they came into view.

Giving a mindless scream of terror, Stella hauled her gun from its holster and pointed it in the general direction of the pirates before opening fire. The bullets completely missed their intended targets and hit the ceiling before ricochetting down the passage way. On the other hand, as soon as she'd sensed the pirates approach, Buffy had turned with inhuman speed gunning down two pirates before they could even think about aiming and firing. They did however manage to get off a few rounds which bounced off the floor, hit the wall and flew off to spend themselves against a hatchway a few yards down from where Buffy stood. The last two pirates had a little more luck, both of them managed to get off a short burst at Buffy before she returned the favour and cut them down with her own deadly accurate bursts. Most of the pirate bullets flew harmless over Buffy's head to bounce and spark against the companionway's walls, floor and ceiling, however a couple of rounds hit Buffy's left forearm.

“Oww!” Buffy cried out as white fluid oozed from the wound in her arm.

“W-what!?” Stella opened her eyes and relaxed her finger on the trigger of her M10, it was only then she saw the dead pirates and the white, watery, liquid coming from her saviour's arm, “Oh my goddess you're a robot!?”

Stella, like most people had a lot of faults, but being uncaring wasn't one of them, she rushed to Buffy's side even as she struggled to put her weapon back in its holster.

“Goddess, is that blood?” Stella cried as she took Buffy's arm in her hands.

“It's nothing,” Buffy shrugged, her memories told her she'd had worse injuries, “it's just a flesh wound.”

“Just a flesh wound!?” Stella exclaimed as she pulled the sleeve of Buffy's jacket away from the wound, “There's this white stuff everywhere,” which was overstating the seriousness of the situation a little, “and...and...” 

Stella bent to examine the wound more closely; one bullet had just grazed Buffy's arm while the other had passed right through. When she looked instead of seeing smashed bone and mangled flesh, Stella saw, more white 'blood', some mangled, white, spongy, 'flesh' but the thing that was really confusing her was the gleaming silver metal were the smashed bone should be.

“Admit it, you're a robot aren't you?” Stella asked slowly, “I mean it doesn't matter to me if you are, I mean I'm not like those people who think all robots are evil and working for The First and Galactic Domination, like some of...” Stella managed to stop herself from saying that some of her best friends were robots.

“Robot!? Me?” Buffy laughed nervously.

“Then why have you got a metal arm?” Stella asked suspiciously, perhaps Buffy really was an evil robot in the employ of the pirates after all.

“Its a prosthetic,” Buffy claimed as she watched the white 'blood' slowly stop oozing from her arm.

“A prosthetic?” Stella repeated uncertainly.

“Yeah,” Buffy nodded as an emergency memory file opened in her central processor, it neatly explained how she came to have a prosthetic arm. “Erm...there was this chopping accident in the galley one day and my arm got cut off just below the elbow...”

Willow had never been very good at coming up with convincing cover stories and she still wasn't.

“A chopping accident?” Stella replied incredulously, “What were you chopping with? Chainsaws?”

Stella didn't believe a word of Buffy's story. Cook indeed, she thought, there was more to Buffy Summers than met the eye.

“I think you're some sort of special forces slayer,” Stella pointed out, “like the 'Special Slayer Service' or something.”

“No!” Buffy replied unwaveringly, “Really I'm just a cook.”

“Cook, smook!”

“Smook?”

“Whatever,” Stella started to guide Buffy towards a hatch, “we better get you bandaged up so you don't 'bleed' all over the place.”

0=0=0=0

“Do you have anything remotely resembling a plan?” Stella asked a couple of minutes later as she bandaged up Buffy's arm.

“A plan?” Buffy replied a little hurt that her companion would think she wasn't working to some sort of plan, “Of course I have a plan.”

“Which is?”

“To take back the ship.”

“And you're going to do this by randomly wandering the corridors and shooting pirates as you come to them?”

“It seems to be totally working so far,” Buffy replied half-heartedly.

“Yeah, right,” Stella tied off the bandage.

“Hey that's a good dressing,” Buffy moved her arm, everything seemed to be working okay.

“Yeah,” Stella smiled as she sat down on a work bench, they appeared to be in another workshop, “I was a Girl Guide, I got all my badges for First Aid, luckily I've not had to use those skills in a long time.”

“Yeah, but thanks, you did a good job.”

“Does it hurt?” Stella gestured at the 'prosthetic' arm.

“It doesn't 'hurt', hurt,” Buffy tried to explain, “but it sends messages to my brain that can be interpreted as 'pain'.”

Buffy turned her arm this way and that and moved her fingers, everything appeared to be fine, which was weird because up to a few minutes ago she had no memory of losing her arm in any kind of culinary chopping accident. Frowning Buffy tried to come to terms with having a robotic arm, perhaps the accident had been so traumatic that she'd suppressed the memory until the new injury had brought it back to her.

“So,” Stella began as she put the first aid box back in its clips on the bulkhead, “how do you 'retake' a ship. We need a better plan than just shooting people as we stumble into them. Y'know eventually the pirate queen or whoever is gonna notice her people are going missing.”

“Well,” Buffy thought for a moment before explaining, “traditionally you need to gain control of the bridge and engineering. From those two locations you can control everything on the ship. The major problem as I see it is; there's only two of us, we're massively outnumbered and I've no idea where the bridge or engineering is!”

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

**TASS Indomitable.**

“What we need to do is take the duck into the echo chamber and make it quack...” Stella explained.

“Huh?” Buffy gave Stella the sort of look she usually reserved for people who sat next to her on public transport and claimed to have a nuclear bomb hidden in the tin of baked beans they were carrying.

“Look, like I say, what we need is a plan to retake the ship which doesn't involve wandering around and shooting people at random...we need a proper plan of action.”

“I had a plan,” Buffy pointed out, a little hurt that her original plan was about to be discarded.

“Call that a plan?” Stella scoffed, “I don't mean to be rude but you're just a cook...” she eyed Buffy for a moment before adding, “...even if you are an unusually well trained cook with all the combat stuff an'all, but, you're still just a cook.”

“Look,” by now Buffy's feeling were really hurt; okay, yes it might not have been the galaxy's best plan but it was a work in progress, “I had a plan, I was looking for a terminal to get a map, but I found you instead.”

“Just as well you did,” Stella started to search the compartment for a terminal; ever since she'd been in combat with those pirates (okay, so, she'd closed her eyes and fired and not hit anything, but, she'd not run away either, so...) she'd felt strangely empowered. “Here!” Stella moved some junk off a workbench to reveal a computer terminal, “So,” she moved the keyboard towards herself, “how do we get it to work?”

“Here give it to me,” Buffy elbowed Stella out of the way and started to type; Willow had programmed her with computer skills almost as good as her own. “There we go,” Buffy smiled having found her way passed all the computer's security systems, “now lets see if we can find the ship’s deck plans.”

It took nearly five minutes for Buffy to find the ship's plans, but she found them, they were the ones used by damage control and showed more than the original blueprints had ever covered.

“What's this?” Stella pointed to a long compartment that ran the entire length of the ship.

“That'll be the shuttle and fighter bay,” Buffy looked at the internal image of the ship that floated in front of her above the keyboard, “it runs the entire length of the ship sandwiched between the main armament turrets,” she pointed out the weapon mounts to Stella. “By the looks of things its only three decks above us.”

“Like this is the bridge?” Stella pointed to a compartment above and towards the bow of the ship.

“That's it,” Buffy nodded before pointing at another compartment below the shuttle bay and at the aft end of the ship, “and this is engineering.”

“Looks to me,” Stella grinned, “is all we have to do is find our way up to this shuttle bay and its like a highway to the bridge or engineering.”

“Yeah, totally,” Buffy nodded her head slowly, “the bay'll be full of shuttles, fighters and stuff so we should have plenty of cover, all we'll have to worry about is if the pirates decide to launch something and evacuate the air from the bay,” she looked at Stella, “I don't know about you, but I can't breath vacuum.”

Actually this was a lie, Buffy could survive in the vacuum of space for several hours, but she'd been programmed not to know this until she’d actually been thrown out of an airlock.

“Me neither,” Stella agreed, “so which way should we go?”

“So, you're interested in the opinion of a mere cook now, huh?” Buffy smiled as she studied the plans.

“I did say you were an unusually well trained cook,” Stella pointed out.

“Yes you did,” Buffy agreed, she paused as her combat subroutines worked out the best course of action, “We go for the bridge, their command is probably there, we can take them out and call for back up before anyone in engineering can lock us out of the system.”

“Okay,” Stella said slowly, “and do we know how many pirates we'll have to fight through to achieve this deceptively simple plan?”

“Let me see,” Buffy chose to ignore the tone of sarcasm in Stella's voice as her fingers danced across the keyboard; a few seconds later the diagram of the ship was sprinkled with red dots, “Each dot is a pirate.”

“Wow...” Stella breathed as she tried to count the dots.

“Eighty-seven,” Buffy announced before Stella was even half way through counting, “looks like my threat estimate was pretty close.”

“Yeah,” Stella looked at the back of Buffy's head and wondered why this woman was wasted as a ship's cook, why wasn't she in the Marines or one of Star Force's very own Star Raider units.

“There's only fifteen or so hostiles in or around the bridge,” Buffy pointed out, “these,” she gestured to a small group of a dozen or so, “must be guarding the prisoners. This bunch,” Buffy indicated a group of about thirty dots, “must be trying to take control of engineering. If there's so many of them down there it might mean they've not completely gained control of the ship's systems.”

“Explains why they've not engaged the FTL drives and boosted outta here,” Stella pointed out.

“True,” Buffy agreed with a nod of her head, “the rest,” she indicated a sprinkling of dots across the ship, “they must be looking for valuables and weapons.”

“Are you sure we can take on fifteen armed and blood thirsty pirates once we get to the bridge?” Stella asked uncertainly; her earlier feelings of 'empowerment' had suddenly deserted her.

“However many's up there,” Buffy closed down the terminal, “we're obliged to take them on. Our only other choice would be to hide out somewhere in the ship and that's not a good idea.”

“It's not?”

“Like totally,” Buffy shrugged, “it'd be only a matter of time before the pirates found us and I really don't want to spend the rest of my life as a pirate's slave.”

“Me neither,” deep down Stella knew she'd probably be ransomed, she was famous and pirates weren't stupid, but even being an important prisoner wasn't very nice.

“Okay,” Buffy started to move around the compartment picking up tools that she thought might come in useful, “Take the first aid kit, we'll likely as not need it.”

Obediently, Stella took the first aid kit down from the bulkhead just before Buffy thrust a bag of tools she'd collected into her hands.

“Leave the fighting to me,” Buffy ordered, “you only shoot if someone attacks you and even then you make sure I'm totally out of the line of fire, okay?”

“Okay,” Stella nodded as her heart beat so loudly she thought that Buffy could hear it. 

“Good, now stay behind me and do as I tell you,” Buffy could hear Stella's heart beating like a jack-hammer in her chest, while her own sounded unusually quiet, almost like an electrical pump in fact.

“Right,” Stella nodded again.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Stella swallowed the large lump that had appeared in her throat.

“Lets go,” Buffy grinned in anticipation as she turned the wheel to open the hatch and stepped out into the corridor.

0=0=0=0

They'd been following the corridor forward for several minutes and every time they came across a stairway leading 'up' they took it; after two decks they'd not bumped into any pirates.

“So, Buffy Summers,” Stella said quietly from her place right behind Buffy, “what brings you to this place and time?”

“Me?” Buffy smiled; half her memories had been programmed by Willow to follow her actual life the other half was a cover story to explain her life in the future. 

Of course Buffy didn't notice any discrepancies because Willow had programmed her not to.

“I was born in a place called Sunnidee in California,” Buffy began, using the modern pronunciation of her home town's name.

“Oh that explains why you're called Buffy,” Stella replied, “you know? Saint Buffy the Brave...local hero, I think she was a sheriff or something”

“Suppose,” Buffy shrugged; she knew the stories and knew that they were all based on her own life before The First almost destroyed the world, however this 'sheriff' thing was a mystery to her.

“Go on,” Stella encouraged; talking was helping to take her mind off the prospect of death or life as a slave of the pirates.

“I went to school, I tried out for the cheerleading squad I went to collage...”

“What did you study?”

“I had some vague ideas about being a school counsellor, but my mom died and I had to drop out to look after my little sister.”

“Oh that's sad,” Stella commiserated.

“Then there was an earthquake or something and I sorta lost contact with my sister,” Buffy continued sadly, “I tried to find her and drifted for a while until I ended up waitressing in a diner near New York. Not long after that I joined Star Force.”

“As a cook?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wierd.”

0=0=0=0

Ten minutes later Buffy and Stella were standing in a hatch way that faced out onto the shuttle bay. As Buffy had suspected the bay was a jungle of shuttles, fighters and various pieces of machinery that would provide them with plenty of cover.

“Looks a mess,” Stella observed.

“Out of dock everything would be neatly lined up,” Buffy explained, “when the ship's in dock the crew take the opportunity to do maintenance that they wouldn't normally be able to do otherwise.”

“Right,” Stella nodded, it wasn't much different to what her 'roadies' did when she was out on tour; when they had a few days break, everything would come out of its crates so the techs could make sure all the stage props and equipment were in tip-top condition.

“No pirates in sight,” Buffy observed, “lets move.”

“Right behind you.”

0=0=0=0

“So,” Stella said a few minutes later as they hid behind the bulk of a troop shuttle, “what do you actually know about pirates?”

“I know pirates are totally bad,” Buffy replied; she didn't mind Stella talking as long as she didn't do it too loudly, she found she could tune the singer's voice out and still scan for pirates.

“Well yes,” Stella concurred, “but what do you _really_ know about them?”

“Not a lot...” Buffy said out loud and then to herself she added, “...but I've a feeling that's going to change real soon.”

“Okay,” Stella smiled, talking really did take her mind off her imminent and no doubt painful death, “I read up about them while I was on tour once, so...every pirate gang is run by a 'Pirate Queen'; she's sort of like a Military Governor and rules the gang with the help of the Council of Captains. Next come the retired pirates, these are the women who've survived long enough to retire and if the truth was known they're the ones who really run the gang...”

“How so?” Buffy said just to let Stella know she was listening.

“Like, they totally run the gang's other businesses, I mean even pirates need clothes and food and somewhere to relax when they're not off pirating.”

This sounded logical to Buffy, after all you couldn't spend all your time travelling the space lanes or raiding isolated colonies.

“Next you have the 'wives',” Stella explained, “traditionally every pirate has between one and three wives. They keep house, look after the children, or work in one of the retired pirate's businesses. Then you have the slaves.” Stella gave an involuntary shiver, “these are those unfortunate souls captured on raids and weren't valuable enough to be ransomed or weren't sold to demons. They do all the really unpleasant, menial jobs plus they regularly get stuffed full of fertility drugs and are forced to get pregnant at least once a year!”

“Eww,” Buffy felt herself shiver.

“Not nice,” Stella agreed as they shifted position so they were kneeling behind a travel pod, “you know even the wives still ride the studs to get pregnant?”

“Don't they have Fertility Clinics or Family Planning Clinics?” Buffy asked, “Like civilised people.”

“Nope, they're not like civilised people,” Stella pointed out, “But at least they tie down the stud when a wife is riding him...they let the studs do what they like when they're set to breeding with the slaves.” 

“That's disgusting,” Buffy had been programmed to react to having sex with a man just like a modern woman would, that is, she found the idea utterly repulsive, “no wonder we toss 'em out the airlock when we catch them...” Buffy looked at Stella and winked, “...after a totally fair trial of course...”

“Of course,” Stella winked back.

“Whatever,” Buffy pointed to where a couple of pirates stood guard by a hatchway, “that's all pretty interesting but I think we better get out minds totally back on to winning back the ship. Like getting passed those two...” for a moment Buffy eyed the pirates and then eyed Stella.

“What?” Stella asked nervously.

“Follow my lead,” Buffy said an instant before she grabbed hold of Stella's collar and dragged her out into the open, the guards became instantly alert and swung their guns to cover the newcomers.

“Hi girls!” Buffy called happily, “Look at what I've caught!”

“Hey that's a pretty one,” said the first pirate, a short muscular woman with a light machine gun hanging from a strap across her shoulder.

“Where'd you find her,” asked the second pirate, a tall thin teenager armed only with a sub-machine gun, “I thought we'd rounded them all up.”

“Yeah,” sniggered the muscular woman, “I helped space the ugly, old, ones.”

“Look who's talking,” Stella said sotto-voice.

“Shut-up! Slave,” Buffy barked as she pushed Stella to her knees in front of the guards.

“Looks like you're gonna have to beat this one a lot to keep her quiet,” observed the teen pirate with a crooked toothed smile.

“Y'gonna keep her, then?” asked the older pirate as she leered down at Stella, “Coz if ya not, I'll take her offa ya hands.”

“I'm keeping her,” Buffy nodded her head as she stepped slightly to the side of Stella and towards the pirates, “thought it might be fun to play with her a while.”

“Want some help?” sniggered the teenager.

By now the pirate's attention was almost completely on Stella the would-be slave. They never noticed Buffy drawing the knife she'd taken from the dead pirate earlier in her adventures. The blade of the knife was at least eighteen inches long and was more like a short sword than a knife; it also had a mono-filament blade which made it sharp enough to cut all but the toughest metal alloys. The pirate's necks hardly proved to be any obstacle at all. Having to jump up a little to catch the tall girl just right, Buffy took off the teen pirate's head with an easy swing of her arm. So clean and quick was the blow that the pirate's head seemed to stay suspended on the fountain of blood that gushed from her neck, pumped from her still beating heart before her body fell to the floor. As the teenager's body fell towards the deck, Buffy continued her swing angling her blade to catch the short pirate on the neck just under her right ear. The blade easily cut through muscle, cartilage and bone until the pirate's head spun away to land on the deck a couple of yards away where it bounced a few times before rolling to a halt.

“EWWW!” Stella screamed as blood pattered down around her like thick, dark, red, rain.

“Shhh!” Buffy warned, “Someone might hear you.”

“Like they're not going to notice all the blood and the bodies?”

“Not until its too late,” Buffy reached down and took hold of the teenagers SMG, there was only a few slashes of blood on it so she handed it to Stella, “here take this its more fire power than the M10 and don't forget to take the spare mags.”

As Buffy moved to cover the hatch, Stella looked with ill concealed disgust at the body at her feet. Kneeling down and trying to get as little additional blood on herself as she could, she removed the pirate's spare ammunition.

“I'm going to be in therapy like forever!” she muttered darkly to herself.

Stuffing spare magazines into her belt as she stood up, Stella took a moment to look her new weapon over. To be honest it looked like a bigger version of the M10 she already carried.

“Okay?”

“As I'll ever be,” Stella replied; all thoughts that this might just be an interesting story to tell as she travelled from venue to venue while she was on tour had fled her mind, screaming as it did so.

“Look,” Buffy hunkered down near the hatch and pulled Stella down beside her, “in a moment I'm going to open that hatch and we're going to make a run for the bridge...”

“I remember,” Stella confirmed, “its three levels up and slightly forward of where we are now.”

“Right,” Buffy nodded, “look they'll have guards out, I'll do my best to shoot them all but if I'm hit or killed you've got a choice to make so you better make it now.”

“Choice?”

“Yeah, if I'm down you've got to decided whether to keep going, try to surrender or blow your own brains out.”

“Gulp!” gulped Stella.

“But don't worry, it probably won't come to that,” Buffy grinned.

“It won't coz you're not going to get killed?”

“Nah,” Buffy shook her head, “if I'm killed you'll already be dead, ready?”

“W-what!?”

“Lets go!” Buffy turned the wheel on the hatch and pushed it open.

Leading the way, Buffy burst into the small compartment behind the hatch, there were no pirates to kill so she took a moment to locate the stairs leading to the bridge proper. To her left she saw a small personnel lift and next to it a set of ladder-like stairs leading up. Ignoring the elevator, Buffy led the way over to the stairs and started to climb as quickly as possible. She knew that the only way for their so-called plan to work was to hit the pirates hard and fast and not give them time to react.

Behind Buffy, Stella puffed and panted as she tried to keep up with the commando cook, after the first half dozen steps she gave up and climbed at her own pace. After all she was carrying the tools (which they'd not had to use so far) and the medical kit plus two weapons and all their ammunition. Looking up she saw that Buffy had come to a halt and was just about to open another hatch. Looking down, Stella was surprised to see they must have climbed the three levels and were now on the same level as the bridge itself. Glancing up again as she continued to climb, she saw Buffy had pushed open the hatch, half a moment later the air was split by the sound of firing. Hot plastic cases fell on her from above as Buffy went out through the hatch, it was only then that the firing became general and the universe got really dangerous.

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

**TASS Indomitable.**

Spinning the locking wheel that held the hatch closed, Buffy unlocked it, put her shoulder to the hatch and easily pushed it open. Glancing though the opening she caught a glimpse of two more pirates guarding the compartment beyond. Ducking her head back she avoided being hit by the burst of automatic fire the buccaneers sent in her direction. Her back pressed against the bulkhead next to the hatchway, Buffy's hand searched her combat harness for the thing she needed to gain access to the bridge level. Her combat subroutines fully in charge of her body by now, she quickly found one of the grenades she'd taken from the dead pirate earlier in the day and tossed it through the open hatch.

A moment later the grenade exploded filling the compartment with high velocity, razor sharp, pieces of metal; the pirates didn't even scream as they died. Rushing through the hatch into the smoky, blood flecked compartment, Buffy shot each pirate in the head just to make sure they were really dead. In an instant she took in the small ante-chamber, there was the hatch she'd come through, the door to the lift that she'd chosen not to use, a computer panel (which probable controlled access to the bridge) and a sliding door about twice the width of a normal door, this, she told herself must be the entrance to the bridge. Striding across the blood slippery floor, Buffy hit the actuator button to open the door, nothing happened. The pirates on the bridge must have locked the door from inside and were probably even now calling for help. Turning at a sound from behind her, she saw that Stella had arrived in the chamber so didn't shoot her, instead she pointed at the panel.

“That must be the security controls, see if you can override the door lock,” Buffy gestured to the big door behind her before crossing the room again to stand at the hatch leading to the ladder which lead back down into the ship.

“Okay...” Stella swallowed the vomit that had risen in her throat at the sight of the dead bodies lying on the floor, carefully stepping between the pools of blood, so she could get to the security controls, she gave the panel one look and said, “...hey, this looks a little more complicated than I'm used to.”

“Do your best,” Buffy ordered, “but do it quickly.” 

“Quickly?” Stella looked at the bewildering display of switches and readouts, “Okay, quickly...” she said as she started to hit buttons and switches at random.

While Stella was trying to figure out the controls, Buffy was looking down the ladder to the compartment they'd just come from, somehow she had to stop the pirates from following them or at least slow them down. Sliding down the ladder until she came to the spot they'd gained access to the steps, Buffy closed the door and dogged the hatch closed. Twisting the wheel harder than its manufacturing specifications would normally allow, she managed to jam the hatch closed, it would slow down any pirate pursuit but wouldn't stop it. Climbing back up to where Stella worked, Buffy did the same to the upper hatch.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I think I've worked it out,” Stella replied not taking her eyes off the controls, it was as if she was frightened the security systems would do something to stop her if she didn't keep an eye on them, “I just need to punch these three buttons,” she pointed to the buttons in question, “and the door should open.”

“Should?” Buffy queried.

“Sorry, best I can do,” Stella shrugged helplessly in reply.

“Well,” Buffy smiled, “I can't expect anything better than your best. Now wait while I deal with the elevator before you open that door.” 

“Elevator?” Stella took her eyes off the controls just in time to see Buffy step up to the lift doors.

Slamming her hands against the elevator doors, Buffy pushed as hard as she could. Hearing metal start to tear and bend, she pushed even harder. Slowly a gap appeared between the two doors, moving quickly she got her fingers into the gap. After pausing for a moment to gather her strength, she pushed the two doors apart to reveal an empty lift shaft. Grabbing hold of the left hand door with both hands she ripped it from its mounting and tossed the warped and twisted piece of metal to one side.

“That should slow them down,” she smiled as she headed back over to the door leading to the bridge.

“Wow,” breathed Stella wide-eyed, “I've said it before an' I'll say it again...just what sort of cook are you?”

“Yeah,” Buffy stood in front of the door as she slung her rifle off her back and made sure it was loaded and ready to fire, “I'm beginning to wonder that myself.” taking a deep breath, she took her final grenade from her harness and pulled the pin, “Okay open her up!”

Hitting the buttons, Stella registered that the doors were opening, she congratulated herself on working out how to open the doors just before she hit the deck and took cover behind the instrument panel. On the other side of the compartment, Buffy tossed her grenade through the door before it was completely open. There was a muffled bang as the grenade went off, followed by a few screams as pirates were torn apart by flying shrapnel and smoke billowed from the now fully opened door. Determined to do her own version of 'shock and awe', Buffy dived through the doorway. Hitting the deck with her shoulder, she rolled to her feet and sprayed the room with a long burst of automatic fire.

Stunned by the grenade the pirates were slow to react to Buffy's arrival, some tried to haul side arms from holsters, most were too slow and were shot down before they could aim and fire. One or two who were obviously more combat aware dived behind chairs or work stations before trying to draw a bead on the fast moving target that had just shattered the calm of the bridge. Most just stood there shocked by the unexpected turn of events and were killed where the stood. 

Diving to the floor again, Buffy rolled until she was behind a chair that had been ripped from its mountings by the force of the grenade going off next to it. Ejecting her used magazine and fitting a new one, she rolled to her right before jumping to her feet again. There were three pirates left that were actively trying to kill her. Two were on opposite sides of the compartment, the third was directly in front of her. Killing the pirate that was to her front, she turned to her right and cut the next pirate down. Both pirates fell their blood oozing from multiple gunshot wounds, they'd be taking no further part in the fight, or indeed anything else from this point onwards.

Turning to engage the last buccaneer, Buffy felt several low velocity rounds strike her in the chest and stomach. Sensing the bullets coming to a halt somewhere inside her, Buffy stumbled a couple of steps backwards at the force of the impact. However, as soon as she regained her balance she brought her rifle to bear on the pirate that was staring at her as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Firing, Buffy saw her rounds striking the pirate in the upper chest and head. Blown off her feet the pirate crashed into the workstation behind her causing it to short out and explode in a cloud of smoke and sparks. However, Buffy was two preoccupied to worry about exploding control consoles. Looking down to where she'd been hit, she saw white fluid seep from the holes in her body. Strangely she didn't feel much pain, it was more like a knowledge that something was wrong and she really needed to get to Lieutenant Rosenberg as quickly as she could. These thoughts were interrupted as Stella cautiously entered the bridge and looked directly at her.

“Oh...My...Goddess!” Stella gasped as she saw the white stuff leaking from Buffy's torso, “You're not as real girl after all...” Stella took a deep breath, “...just what kinda cook are you...I mean _really_?”

0=0=0=0

**TASS Reluctant.**

“...an' so, I asked Tara to do a search of her historical databases for images of Buffy,” Faith explained.

It was the start of another watch aboard the Reluctant, there were exactly six people aboard; Ensign Mountshaft and two crewers were off watch, while Faith, Willow and one of the ship's Marines took the watch. The rest of the crew were enjoying the 'flesh-pots' of Alor City. Tomorrow the on board crew would be able to have three days shore leave when they were relieved by crew who'd already had their turn.

“So what did she find?” Willow asked as she did a sensor sweep of the space around the Reluctant and Alor Station.

“Here I'll put it in the tank,” Faith made some adjustments to her controls and a two dimensional image appeared in the tank.

The image showed Buffy Summers dressed in clothes that would have been fashionable about six or seven hundred years ago. Standing next to her was a young woman who neither Willow or Faith recognised and in front of the two adults stood two pretty little girls who's mother was obviously the woman standing next to Buffy.

“You sure that's Buffy,” Willow asked quietly.

“I had Tara enhance the image and put it through a facial recognition program,” Faith explained, “she's ninety-seven-point-two-six percent certain that is the Buffy Summers we know and love...”

“So she did survive, or at least got sent into the future,” Willow gazed in wonder at the image, “do you know were she lived?”

“The background isn't very clear,” Faith explained, “I mean they'd only just rediscovered photography, but Tara seems to think it might be California in the late twenty-six-hundreds. The clothes look about right for that period.”

“Hey what's that?” Willow increased the size of the image and focused in on Buffy's waistcoat.

“Looks like a sheriff's badge to me,” Faith replied.

“Y'know what this means?”

“Does it matter what I say coz ya gonna tell me anyway?” Faith joked.

“It means that we might be able to trace Buffy's where abouts and maybe even track down her offspring, you never know she might have had children herself.”

“You think?”

“Uh-huh,” Willow nodded but before she could say anything else a flashing light on her board distracted her. “Hey...I'm getting some screwy readings from the Indomitable.”

“Screwy?” Faith dismissed the image of Buffy and her family from the tank and replaced it with a real-time view of the space around the Reluctant, “They teach you 'screwy' at science officer school, is that better or worse than 'hinky'?”

“Hey,” Willow replied, “It's a technical term, we don't expect you none science types to understand.”

“Okay, okay,” Faith grinned, “so what's so screwy?”

“Looks like they're preping shuttles for launch.”

“Maybe the Admiral's party is over?” Faith asked as she increased the magnification on the image in the tank.

“Its only eighteen-twenty-three,” Willow said as she checked the ship's chronometer, “Hold on...Tara, has LCW Summers returned from the flagship?”

“LCW Summers is not aboard the Reluctant, Lieutenant Rosenberg,” the AI replied rather formally.

“Maybe they kept her over on the flag ship?” Faith suggested. 

“Hmmm,” Willow pondered the problem for a moment as she checked the ship's log for the period she and Faith had been off watch. “this looks...”

“Screwy?” Faith smirked.

“No, this time its 'hinky',” Willow replied retaliating against Faith's earlier jibe, “You know since the last shuttle arrived bringing the entertainment, nothing has left or arrived the Indomitable and they've been observing radio silence.”

“Maybe they're too busy, what with the Admiral's shindig an'all,” Faith didn't sound as if she really believed what she was saying, “should I call the Captain?”

“Not yet...try calling the Indomitable, ask 'em if they're having any problems,” Willow suggested, “tell them we're reading a reactor spike or something, ask them if they're evacuating.”

“Roger that, L-t,” Faith replied crisply just before she tried to make contact with the flagship.

A couple of minutes later, Faith looked at Willow and frowned.

“No reply,” she said shortly.

“Okay...” Willow said slowly, “...I think its time for some magic,” she said as she closed her eyes and concentrated.

0=0=0=0

**TASS Indomitable.**

“Does that hurt?” Stella asked as she advanced on Buffy.

“Not really,” Buffy replied sounding confused at all the contradictory thoughts that were going through her mind.

On the one hand she felt that she needed to reassure Stella that the white stuff that was oozing slowly from the bullet holes in her chest was nothing to worry about. On the other hand and at the same time long lists of damage to systems and how vital functions were being rerouted and how she needed to see Lieutenant Rosenberg within twenty-four hours to avoid serious malfunctions were passing through her mind.

“You're really a robot aren't you?” Stella stood in front of Buffy.

“I don't know...” Buffy felt at the verge of tears but something was telling her that she needed to conserve liquid, “...I thought I was...you know like totally real...”

“Maybe they found a way of putting a real person into a robot body,” Stella suggested, “whatever...take off your jacket and vest let me look at those holes.”

“You want to help me?” Buffy sounded surprised.

“Of course,” Stella took the first aid kit from off her shoulder, “like I said, I kinda like robots and you helped me, so take those bloody...is that white stuff blood?”

“I suppose so,” Buffy shrugged as she took off her combat harness, jacket and vest.

“Wow,” Stella smiled, “whoever built you did a good job...” she smiled, “...those boobs certainly look real.”

“I always thought they were a bit too big,” Buffy replied as she sat down in the Captain's chair and let Stella get to work plugging up her 'leaks'.

“Nah, they suit you,” Stella replied as she wiped away the fluid leaking from Buffy's torso, “Look I'm not going to try and get the bullets out I might do more damage, I'll just patch you up, okay?”

“Okay,” Buffy nodded, “I have this strange urge to find Lt Rosenberg...”

“Who is?” Stella applied a dressing to a hole in Buffy's chest.

“Science Officer aboard my ship the Reluctant.”

“Perhaps, she built you,” Stella suggested.

“Maybe...” Buffy replied uncertainly, “...I have this feeling I've been alive...” Buffy stopped and corrected herself, “maybe that should have be 'existed' for longer than I've know Miz Rosenberg...Willow?”

“Okay, I think there's more wrong than just bullet holes,” Stella plugged the last hole in Buffy's body, “I think you're suffering from the robot version of shock. If you were human I'd tell you to sit down and have a cup of hot, sweet tea or something.”

“I'm already sitting down,” Buffy pointed out, “so what's the equivalent of tea for robots?”

“No idea,” Stella admitted, “maybe this Rosenberg woman knows, perhaps we should try to contact her?”

“Yeeaah,” Buffy's voice sounded slower than usual and very slurred, “Stellaaaaa, I think theeeeere's sooomethiiing'sss veeeeery wroooong!”

“Oh crap!” Stella watched helplessly as Buffy closed down and sat like a statue in the Captain's chair, “She musta been more damaged than she thought she was...call for help,” Stella told herself as she looked around at all the workstations that lined the walls of the bridge, “Now if I was a comms station where would I be?”

0=0=0=0

**TASS Reluctant.**

“So, what's up?” Faith asked as Willow opened her eyes.

“Pirates!”

“Where!?” Faith looked around ready to fight.

“No,” Willow tried to explain, “I'm getting a very strong sense of pirates aboard the Indomitable.”

“How strong?” Faith wanted to know.

“Strong enough to order battlestations!” Willow replied.

“Battlestations?” Faith frowned uncertainly, “You sure, L-t?”

“I'm sure,” Willow nodded, “Battlestations if you please, Miz Lehane and inform the Captain straight ways after.”

“Aye-aye, ma'am,” Faith replied as alarms started to sound and she began to try and contact the Captain on the planet below.

“Tara,” Willow asked the AI, “estimate the time needed for the Captain and crew to get back to the ship.”

“Difficult to say,” Tara mused, “but even assuming that the crew were at Alor City space port it would take a shuttle at least an hour to get to the Reluctant.”

“So we're gonna have to manage with who we've got aboard now?”

“That sounds about right,” Tara agreed just as Ensign Mountshaft arrived on the bridge, she looked as if she'd just got out of her bunk which she had in fact just done.

“What's going on?” Dollie Mountshaft demanded as she wiped the sleep from her eyes.

“Pirates aboard the Indomitable,” Willow informed her, “take the helm if you please Miz Mountshaft.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Dollie Mountshaft moved quickly around the Captain's chair and took position at the helms-woman's station, “Bringing all sub-light engines on line, full power available in twenty minutes.”

“Make it ten, Miz Mountshaft,” Willow ordered.

“Sorry Ma'am it doesn't work like that, its twenty minutes or we explode,” the Ensign shrugged as she turned to look at Willow, “I hate to say it but...y'cannea change the laws of physics.”

“Darn,” Willow muttered as her fantasies came crashing down around her: dragging herself back from long ago afternoons when she'd watched repeats of Star Trek with Xander, she decided to stick with what was possible, “Okay who else have we got aboard?”

“Able Crew Woman Bhatnagar and Able Crew Woman Lindstrom,” Faith informed Willow crisply, we've also got Marine Mano.”

“Okay...” Willow wondered where would be the best place to deploy her limited crew, “...damn-it have everyone come to the bridge we need someone on comms and at counter measures.”

“You're not thinking of trying to fight the Indomitable are you, Captain,” Dollie Mountshaft asked, “coz she'd swat us like a fly!”

“I don't know what I'm going to do yet,” Willow replied; the truth was she didn't know what she could do just now.

“Unidentified ship bearing green four-zero-mark-zero-one, entering extreme sensor range now,” Faith called as she worked her battle board.

“What have we got?” Willow asked, “it could just be a freighter or something.”

“I'm reading an eight-thousand tonne Starlifter class freighter,” Faith continued, the eight-thousand tonnes denoted the amount of cargo the ship could carry.

“There, see,” Willow signed with relief, “nothing to worry about, warn them off Miz Lehane.”

“Aye...” Faith was just about to acknowledge Willow's order when something new happened, “VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!” she called in alarm, “I have ten missiles inbound from that freighter, I'm also reading some unusual energy spikes.”

“Target?” Willow felt her heart start to hammer in her chest.

“They're coming straight at us!” Faith replied.

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

**TASS Reluctant.**

“Oh crap...” Willow murmured quietly as the missiles bore down on the Reluctant.

“Time to impact, seven minutes,” Faith announced, she didn't bother with the odd few seconds as they were meaningless; they had seven minutes to contemplate their imminent deaths a few seconds, more or less, would make no difference.

“Erm...” Willow sat in the Captain's chair wondering what she should do and asking herself why she had to be in command, she wasn't a line officer she was just the ship's science officer.

For just a moment Willow considered turning over command to Ensign Mountshaft, but before she could say anything, Faith's voice broke her train of thought.

“I have five shuttles leaving the Indomitable,” Faith informed the bridge, “projected course is right towards that pirate ship...which, by the way Captain, is still closing...”

“Ooooh...” Willow moaned miserably as she realised that her inability to decide what to do was going to get everyone killed.

“Just like a training sim, L-t,” Faith told her quietly.

“Yeah, right of course,” Willow replied, “just like a training sim...okay, configure launcher 'Anna' for an anti shipping strike and launcher 'Barbara' as an anti missile strike,” she ordered, “Lock secondary armament on to those shuttles,” Willow swung her chair so she was facing Able Crew Woman Bhatnagar at the comms station, “Comms raise those shuttles and tell them to identify themselves...”

“Shuttles have locked weapons onto us!” Faith called urgently.

“Miz Mountshaft,” Willow let her chair swing so she was facing forward again, “commence evasive pattern delta.”

“But Ma'am we're only up to thirty-five-percent power,” Mountshaft replied as she looked over her shoulder at Willow.

“Then do thirty-five-percent of evasive pattern delta!” Willow replied coldly.

“Shuttles are firing!” Faith warned before adding, “light kinetic penetrators...”

“Can they damage us?” Willow wanted to know.

“Yes,” Faith replied firmly.

“Target their weapons and engines, Cots,” Willow ordered as the Reluctant started to yore slowly from side to side as the helm fed power to the engines.

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Faith's fingers made the adjustments needed to carry out Willow's orders, “Firing NOW!”

“Lindstrom,” Willow called.

“Ma'am...erm, I mean, Captain?” Alison replied nervously, she wasn't usually assigned to the bridge, her duty station was normally in engineering.

“Ma'am, will do,” Willow smiled reassuringly at the Able Crew Woman, “Commence ECM and launch decoys at my command,” Willow shifted her gaze to Faith, “How soon will those missiles strike, Cots?”

“Just over five minutes, Captain,” Faith replied with a grim smile.

“Okay,” Willow replied with a grin, “Totally take them out, fire the anti-missile missiles first then the anti-shipping missiles so they follow the first strike in, with luck our friends out there won't see what's coming until it's too late.”

“Aye-aye, Captain!” Faith pressed the buttons on her board to fire the missile launchers, a moment later she reported, “All missiles away and running true.”

“And those shuttles?” Willow wanted to know.

“One shuttle destroyed, two more damaged, the other two are taking evasive action...wait...” Faith studied a read out, “one of the shuttles has fired a short range missile at us!”

“Destroy it and take out those shuttles, I want them outta my sky!” Willow growled.

“Aye-aye, Captain!” Faith replied as she obeyed Willow's command.

Outside on the hull of the Reluctant, the ship's secondary armament of four thirty-millimetre Gatling guns tracked the pirate shuttles as they either tried to limp away from the warship or defiantly returned fire. Once locked onto their targets the secondaries fired short bursts of semi-armour-piercing rounds at their target. The rounds, travelling at over a thousand yards a second, took five or six seconds to reach their targets, too soon for the shuttles to take effective evasive action. Three shuttles blossomed like short lived suns as hundreds of rounds hit each of them and caused massive damage to their drive units. A forth shuttle simply fell apart as the Reluctant's rounds ripped into it.

With four out of five targets destroyed the Gatling guns turned their attention to the surviving shuttle as a couple of the Reluctant's point defence Gatlings fired and destroyed the lone incoming missile. The secondary armament had now locked on to the surviving shuttle which was performing wild evasive manoeuvres in its frantic attempts to escape certain destruction. The Gatling guns fired simultaneously sending over fourteen-hundred rounds at the seemingly defenceless shuttle only to have all four streams of rounds miss by a wide margin. The Gatling's tracking computers recalculated their firing solutions and fired again, once again they missed.

“Something's wrong, Captain,” Faith reported, “I can't get a firm lock on that last shuttle.”

“ECM? Lindstrom, report,” Willow barked.

“Erm...” Alison looked at her unfamiliar workstation before reporting back, “...no obvious ECM or decoys detected,” she hedged, “Captain.”

“You're sure?” Willow asked in a kinder voice.

“Erm...as sure as I can be, Ma'am, I usually work in engineering,” she explained.

“We all have our troubles Lindstrom,” Willow replied, “it's a totally imperfect universe.”

“Captain...?” Faith called.

“Yes, Cots,” Willow turned her head to look at Faith.

“The shuttle isn't using ECM or decoys, but I still can't get a solid lock on her.”

“No ECM or decoys?” Willow pondered.

“Not that I can detect, Ma'am,” Faith confirmed.

“Then how are they...” Willow suddenly knew the answer, “...magic!”

“Magic!?” Faith looked at Willow in concern, “But that's not possible, all the experiments using combat magic have failed.”

“I'm thinking they've totally got a witch who's somehow figured it out,” Willow mused.

“Can you...?”

“Possibly,” Willow nodded, “but I'd have to go into a trance to cast counter spells, which wouldn't be a good idea in the middle of a battle and there'd be no guarantee that even I'd be able to do anything.”

Magic in space was notoriously difficult, the Alliance had tried to use combat magics some years before but the results were always the same. As the ship using magic tried to get their spells to work the non-magic using ship simply launched missiles and blew its target into stardust. The best theory as to why magic didn't work was that the alloys used to make starships and spaceships in general interfered with the use of magic so much as to make any spells directed at something outside the craft ineffective.

“Agreed, Captain,” Faith nodded.

“So,” with no shuttles firing at the Reluctant, Willow found she had several seconds to relax and gather her thoughts, “how are our missiles doing Cots?”

“Time to target thirty seconds,” Faith reported.

“Miz Mountshaft,” Willow turned to look at the helms woman, “how are we doing?”

“Power now, seventy-three-percent, still performing evasive pattern delta.”

“Cots, any immediate threats?” Willow wanted to know.

“Apart from that shuttle, which is still making away from us at top speed, we're clear...for now.”

“Okay, Miz Mountshaft,” Willow sighed heavily with the relief of tension, “secure from evasive pattern delta and lock in a course that'll take us right down that pirate's throat!”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Mountshaft replied as she started to compute a course that would put them on an interception course for the pirate ship.

“Captain?”

“What is it Comms?” Willow turned to look a ACW Bhatnagar.

“I'm getting messages from Alor Station, Alor City and Alor Flight Control all demanding to know what in the hellmouth is going on up here, their words Ma'am,” Bhatnagar reported, “I'm also getting comms from someone called Stella Stardust who claims to be aboard the Indomitable.”

“Not _the_ Stella Stardust?” Willow gasped only to receive blank looks from everyone else on the bridge, “Okay, so I'm the only one to keep up to date with modern pop-culture...put her on speakers Bhatnagar.”

“Yes, Captain.” there was a quiet 'click' and a hiss as Alitza changed channels.

“Hello...hello...is there anybody there...?”

“Captain,” Faith interrupted the message before it could get properly started, “our anti-missile missiles are about to attack.”

Far out in interplanetary space the Reluctant's anti-missile strike detected the incoming pirate missiles. Changing their formation to mirror that of the incoming missiles, the anti-missile missiles closed on their targets, as soon as their proximity fuses told them they were at optimum range they exploded filling the space between the pirate missiles and the Reluctant with thousands of metal balls each travelling at thousands of miles-per-hour towards the incoming missiles like some sort of high velocity wall in space. Only seconds after the Reluctant's missile had detonated something unusual happened.

“Captain...” Faith frowned as she read the read outs on her battle board.

“Cots?” Willow turned and frowned when she saw the worried expression on Faith's face.

“Not sure what happened but we only destroyed four incoming missiles,” Faith reported, “the other six took evasive action and flew around our barrage!”

“What!?” Willow demanded confirmation; this wasn't supposed to happen, no one had missiles that could take evasive action, “Are you sure...” Willow took a deep calming breath, “...of course you're sure...engage with the secondaries and point defence when in range. How are our attack missiles doing?”

“Still running true,” Faith said after glancing at her battle board, “we only lost three to our own anti-missile fire...”

“Almost as many as we destroyed of their missiles,” Willow paused for a moment before issuing her orders, “Okay lets have evasive pattern...erm...”

“Hotel?” Dollie Mountshaft suggested, “Like we haven't done Hotel in ages!”

“Make it so, Miz Mountshaft,” Willow agreed, “but keep us on course for that pirate as fast as you can.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Dollie's fingers danced over her controls as the Reluctant started to corkscrew through space.

“Miz Lindstrom, launch decoys and start ECM, if you please.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Alison Lindstrom hesitantly pushed buttons and switched switches as she worked to surround the Reluctant with a wall of electronic ghosts.

“And finally,” Willow turned to her comms officer, “Miz Bhatnagar?”

“Erm...yes Captain?”

“What has Stella Stardust got to say for herself?”

“Right, ma'am,” Alitza's face turned pale as she heard the information coming to her over her ear piece, “Miz Stardust claims that pirates tried to steal the Indomitable and the Admiral is a traitor...”

“A traitor?” Willow gasped.

“That's what she said, Captain,” Alitza confirmed, “she had the Captain of the Indomitable shot along with all her senior officers...any crew still aboard were either killed or taken prisoner...”

“Oh goddess!” Willow gasped as she realised she'd probably ordered the deaths of Star Force personnel who were being held aboard those shuttles she'd had destroyed, “Any news of Buffy...I mean LCW Summers?”

“Yes Ma'am,” Alitza replied, “LCW Summers is on the bridge with Miz Stardust, Buffy's...I mean LCW Summers is wounded...no, wait, Miz Stardust says, 'damaged' and did we know that LCW Summers was a robot?”

“Okay...” Willow began to say something but was interrupted by Faith.

“Secondary armament is engaging incoming missiles, two vampires destroyed,” Faith reported crisply.

“Comms,” Willow tried to keep her mind on what she was doing even as Faith fed her more updates on the incoming missile strike. “inform everyone on or around Alor of what's happening, then tell Miz Stardust to sit tight until we get a chance to...”

“VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!” Faith cried.

“Do you have to shout, Cots?” Willow asked tiredly, “What's gone wrong now?”

“Pirate has launched twenty vampires and is turning away from us, she's trying to escape.”

“Damn!” Willow snapped, “What about our missiles?”

“Closing to attack range in, five...four...three...pirate launching counter measures and engaging with point defence...”

Everyone on the bridge waited in a silence broken only by the bleeps and clicks of the ship's systems, for Faith to report the effect of their strike.

“I'm getting nine detonations...” Faith's face darkened as she read the information coming to her from her combat scanners, “...the pirate is trailing atmosphere and has changed course, no reduction in speed, no other indications of damage all our other missiles were detonated either by decoys or point defence.”

“Goddess that thing must be loaded down with counter measures and point defence,” Willow mussed, “What about those incoming vampires?”

“Still four minutes out,” Faith replied.

“Configure both launchers as an anti-missile strike and fire when ready, widest possible spread, helm, evasive pattern Chloe; counter measures, launch every thing you've got!”

Evasive pattern Chloe was so violent that not even the Reluctant's dampeners could fully compensate for the wild manoeuvring of the ship.

“Firing missiles NOW!” Faith mashed down on the firing stud that would send twenty-four missiles on their one way journey to intercept the incoming vampires, now all anyone could do was wait.

A couple of minutes later the Reluctant's missiles started to explode forming a wall of metal for the pirate vampires to fly into. This time, probably because the Reluctant's missiles outnumbered the vampires, they took down half the incoming vampires. However, the other half either took evasive action or flew unharmed through the wall of metal sent to stop them. As the vampires got closer the secondary armament fired and took out another four missiles. Finally the pirate vampires got within the shell of counter measures surrounding the Reluctant. Two vampires exploded as they attacked decoys but the remaining four ignored the electronic ghosts and bored into attack the ship itself. Bursting into life the point defence guns opened up filling the space around the Reluctant with high velocity seven-millimetre kinetic penetrators. Three vampires exploded in quick succession as they intersected the streams of bullets; this left one vampire to home in on the Reluctant. 

“BRACE FOR IMPACT!” Faith yelled as the pirate vampire loomed large on her sensor displays.

Holding on tightly to the arms of her chair, Willow knew that if the missile struck they'd all be dead. Even if they weren't killed outright, no one had had time to put on their vacuum suits, yes their uniforms would protect them for about fifteen to twenty minutes but that wouldn't be long enough for a rescue shuttle to get to them. The best they could hope for was that someone would find their bodies and give them a proper funeral.

“Impact in...” Faith didn't get a chance to start her count down as the pirate missile exploded about five hundred yards from the Reluctant.

Luckily the pirate missile didn't carry a nuclear warhead, however it did carry a high yield explosive warhead that sent shrapnel lancing through space to punch through the Reluctant's hull. On the bridge the crew were thrown out of their seats and across the floor as the ship rocked violently from side to side. Warning lights flashed as alarms called for attention while smoke and sparks issued forth from control panels.

“Everyone alright?” Willow called as she picked herself up off the deck, “Tara, damage control report.”

“And about time too,” Tara the AI replied testily, “I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me...”

“Tara,” Willow interrupted the computer, “damage report please...”

“Surprisingly light,” Tara reported in her more normal calm voice, “Minor damage to Star and Sub-light drives, several holes in the outer hull, we lost some atmosphere but the affected areas have been sealed off; maintenance-bots have been dispatched to seal the hull. Some damage to non-essential systems...personally I think we got off easy!”

“Damage to the sub-light engines?” Willow queried as she got back into her seat.

“Sub-light engines are now at thirty-two-percent efficiency,” Tara confirmed, “Star drive is off line until repairs can be carried out.

“Not enough to catch that pirate, then?” Willow mused.

“Or the shuttle,” Faith reported as she used her left hand to operate her controls, she suspected she'd dislocated her right arm, “I'm reading a course change, if everyone remains on course the shuttle will catch the pirate up in about six hours.”

“Can we shoot at them?” Willow wanted to know.

“Yes...” Faith replied, “...but I wouldn't recommend it, at this range a missile duel would be pointless. In fact with these new missiles the pirate's using we might lose.”

“Okay,” Willow sighed as she looked around the bridge as her reduced bridge crew put out fires and started making running repairs, “Miz Mountshaft, set course for the Indomitable, best speed, lets get our cook back.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Dollie replied as she laid in her new course.

0=0=0=0

**The Epilogue.**

**Willow.**

“Ah, Miz Rosenberg,” Lt/Cmd J J Adams, the captain of the Reluctant looked up as the door to her tiny office swished open; she smiled when she saw who it was, “Come in and sit down...”

“Thank you Captain,” Willow entered the crampt office and took the seat in front of the captain's desk.

“...can I get you something?” Adams gestured towards the food processor in the bulkhead next to her desk, “tea? Coffee? Something else?”

Willow glanced at the processor and was just about to ask for a cup of tea when she changed her mind. The processors had been playing up again and had been producing food and drink that either didn't taste quite right or tasted of something completely different to what had been requested, like a glass of milk that tasted of bacon. Seeing the look on Willow's face, Captain Adams nodded.

“Perhaps you're right,” she sat down and made herself comfortable, “now, I've spoken to Miz Mountshaft, Cots Lehane and the other crew that were aboard during your little adventure and they all agree...” the Captain smiled, “...that without your leadership, the Reluctant would have been almost certainly lost,” Captain Adams beamed at Willow, “there'll be commendations all 'round and probably medals too.”

“Thank-you Captain,” Willow replied, “but I couldn't have done it without the rest of the crew, especially Cots Lehane.”

“Indeed,” Captain Adams nodded, “and its a sign of a good officer that you don't want to hog all the credit yourself, rest assured, Cots Lehane's contribution to the battle will be acknowledged.” Captain Adams paused as she checked the screen of her computer, “Now what can you tell me about this magic spell that kept our fire control from locking on to that shuttle, I've read your report but I want to know what you _feel_.”

“I don't know, Captain,” ever since the battle Willow had been trying to puzzle out what had happened, “like I suggested in my report that one shuttle might have been made of non-standard materials, but...”

“But...?” Captain Adams hinted.

“...but,” Willow took a deep breath, “the magic ma'am,” Willow paused again.

“Come on Willow,” Adams encouraged, “spit it out.”

“Well, Captain there was something familiar about the magic, like I knew the witch casting the spell, but apart from myself I don't know anyone capable of that sort of power, unless...”

“Unless?”

“No, nothing Captain, like a totally silly thought,” the thoughts going through Willow's mind were far from silly; what if someone else had come through into the future, like another witch, like Amy Madison for instance?

“Well,” Captain Adams looked at Willow and saw the worry on her face but decided not to push the issue, “I'd like you to keep studying the recordings and reports and if anything fresh pops into your mind, let me know.”

“Of course Captain,” Willow agreed; what if Amy had some how been sucked into the future and was working with a gang of pirates, she really wanted to talk about this to Faith.

“Now on to other business,” Captain Adams touched the screen of her computer to bring up another document, “I've put you down to start training as a line officer...”

“But Captain...” Willow began to object thinking she'd have to leave the Reluctant.

“Don't worry, Jerri Farr and myself will do most of your tutoring, they'll be some work to do on the sims and on your personnel computer. However, the tests you'll need to do will be off ship, but they can be done at any Alliance base with an AI and combat sims capabilities. Willow,” Adams said earnestly, “you're just the sort of officer Star Force likes to see develop, you seem to have a natural talent for command and with you as another Watch Officer I don't have to stand watch so often!”

“If you think so, Captain,” Willow had never thought of herself as the 'commander' type, she'd always left that sort of thing to Buffy, but now Buffy was a robot, so...

“I do think so,” Captain Adams replied firmly, “you're a fine officer, Willow you could go far in Star Force, perhaps as far as flag rank.”

“Y'think?” Willow was stunned, no, she told herself, she could never be a Captain or an Admiral that just wasn't her.

“Yes,” Captain Adams laughed, “I do think and I'm the Captain so I'm always right!”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Willow said acknowledging the inevitable.

“Finally, how's our little Robo-chef doing? I've got to admit things haven't been the same since she's not been in the galley.”

“LCW Summers,” Willow replied pointedly, she didn't like it when people referred to Buffy as 'Robo-chef', “should be back on duty tomorrow morning in time for breakfast.”

“Thank The Lady for that,” Adams breathed a heavy sigh of relief, “the food processors haven't been the same without her...”

“She adjusts them daily,” Willow explained, “otherwise they 'drift'.”

“Is that so?” Captain Adams raised an eyebrow at this information, “But enough of my self interest, what about the damage to LCW Summers?”

“Minor battle damage that I was able to repair...”

“But didn't she go into a sort of coma?” Adams asked.

“Yeah, she did,” Willow looked down guiltily, “I'm afraid that was my fault...”

“How so?”

“The damage to Buffy caused her central processor to overload, I'd downloaded too many emergency programs and they all started to run when she was hit which caused a cascade failure that resulted in her little coma. Normally she'd have been knocked out until either her self repair systems had repaired the damage or I'd got to her. As a result I've had to change her memories again.”

“You have?” Captain Adams looked concerned; at least half of that concern was the thought that she might lose the best cook the Reluctant had had since she'd taken command, “In what way?”

“Buffy...I mean LCW Summers now knows she's a robot,” Willow explained, “and she also knows exactly what her capabilities are.”

“And she's okay with this?” Captain Adams asked slowly.

“Yes, Captain, she's fine,” Willow replied, in the sure and certain knowledge that she'd fixed Buffy and everything would turn out alright again.

0=0=0=0

**Buffy.**

Sitting as motionless, as only a robot could, on her bunk, Buffy only had one thought going through her mind.

“So, I'm a robot,” she vocalised, “how could Willow do this to me?”

Well, of course Buffy knew the answer to that, like she knew the answer to a lot of things, her memory banks were just stuffed with useful information. Willow had done what she'd done because she thought it was for the best, and if she hadn't Buffy knew she'd be dead. But...wasn't she really dead? From what Faith had found out the _real_ Buffy had lived and died in the twenty-six-hundreds. She'd been a sheriff, she'd been married, she'd had children, she'd lived to a ripe old age and when she'd died everyone in town had gone to her funeral.

That was the real Buffy, she, Robo-Buffy wasn't anyway like that Buffy, she was the sum of Willow's memories of her friend, Willow was literally her creator, her 'god' and Buffy didn't know how she felt about that. Which was why she was sitting on her bunk trying to figure it all out, or at least part of her positronic brain was trying to work it out, other parts were making lists of the stores she would need before they boosted out of the Alor system, she was also trying to figure out how to adjust the food processors so she didn't have to check them everyday and... There were half a thousand things going through her mind as she slowly realised that she had surpassed her creator and she was now so much smarter than Willow every would be, but some how that knowledge didn't make her feel any happier, there was still a great yawning hole somewhere inside her and with all her new found knowledge she didn't know how to fill it.

The sound of her hatch chime sounding jerked a fair proportion of Buffy's attention away from what she'd been thinking about.

“Who's there?” Buffy called all the time knowing that if she linked in to Tara's systems she'd be able to use the ship's security systems to see who was there.

“Its Alitza,” a voice replied from the speaker next to the hatch.

“Go away,” Buffy replied.

“But we had a date...” Alitza reminded her.

“A date...” Buffy frowned; yes there in her 'diary' was a note saying that she had a date with Alitza, they were supposed to go down to Alor city, book into a hotel and have sex. “...it's cancelled.”

“Look, Buffy I know we can't go planet side but...please let me in”

Getting up Buffy sighed, a cosmetic reaction designed to make her appear more human, she opened the hatch and stood to one side to let Alitza in before closing the hatch behind her.

“So?” Buffy retook her place on her bunk.

“Look I know we can't go planet side but I wondered if you'd like to do something aboard ship,” Alitza asked as she studied Buffy's face and wondered what was going on inside her head. 

“By 'something' you mean sex, right?” Buffy did a good impersonation of someone who was feeling majorly sorry for herself, “You know I'm a robot, right?”

“I knew before I asked you out the first time,” Alitza explained.

“You did?” this information took Buffy by surprise.

“I also know that you're brave and loyal...”

“Only because I'm programmed to be,” Buffy explained.

“You're incredibly cute,” Alitza continued.

“It was the way I was built,” Buffy muttered grumpily.

“And I love the way you pout,” Alitza sat down next to Buffy, “and I'd really like to get to know Buffy Summers way more than I do now, even if she is a robot. I mean what girl can claim that she has a super intelligent robot girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” Buffy turned to face Alitza and found herself staring into the other girl's eyes; as she did so deeply hidden parts of her old sex-bot programming that Willow had not been able to erase came back on line.

Tilting her head to one side a little, Buffy moved her lips closer to Alitza's until finally they touched. As her lips pressed and both girls mouths opened a little to let their tongues entwine, something like a nuclear flash went off in Buffy's mind. Suddenly she knew what 'it' was all about. Suddenly she knew, as the old saying went, what the answer to life, the universe and everything was and it wasn't forty-two. The answer was quite simple, so simple in fact that Buffy didn't understand how she'd not thought of it before; the answer to everything was contained in the embrace of someone who loved you for what you were, not what you appeared to be.

The End

Once again as our heroes head off to new adventures why not sing along as the Band of the US Navy plays the anthem of the Terran Alliance (highlight and right click to follow the link)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8AcsNAyXxM

__

_United forever in friendship and labour,  
Our mighty Alliance will ever endure.  
The Terran Alliance will live through the ages.  
The dream of her people their fortress secure.   
Long live our Terran motherland,  
Built by the people's mighty hand.  
Long live our people, united and free.  
Strong in our friendship tried by fire.  
Long may our Terran flag inspire,  
Shining in glory for all there to see._


End file.
